And there you have it.
Owning a new Viper is really still a combination of nostalgia and sports car dominance, with nostalgia owning a larger and larger percentage of why people are buying Vipers. I dare say less than ten percent of Viper owners are qualified to actually drive the Viper for what it is built for..and thats ********** in a circuit track course. I remember when I drove my Viper up at the Limerock track in CT. First, that kind of road racing is very difficult and demanding on both the body and the car. The g forces in the turns Vipers are capable of are tremendous to the point of almost unbearable for most drivers...and thats with an 04 stock suspension in my Viper. The ACR is pulling g's that are way beyond what most sports car drivers can sustain over the course of a full race. Few Viper owners are doing that.
What they are doing is what most sports car guys are doing..and that is pulling up besides other sports cars on the highway and challenging them. Any stock Viper older than the Gen 4 is gonna have problems with quite a few other stock sports cars out there. I think the Gen 5 will still defeat any sports car out there under $300k from 0 to 190 mph. Many, if not most Viper owners still want to have the fastest car in the streets...thats why so many are supercharged, have headers, cams...etc, we still want to win the road wars. My Viper was modded and if yall know anything about me my wife and I went "hunting" practically every weekend for other sports cars...and I NEVER lost a race...but I never came across a twin turbo Z06 or some other insanely powered car.
So, unless you are buying the Viper to race in a circuit course, you are buying it for nostalgia (the experience, the feel, connection, etc) unless you mod it. And, the problem with modding is everybody else is modding too.
When you get a chance go to the Aston Martin official website. I cannot help but feel sorry for Aston Martin owners...what in the hell are they actually doing over there? They are bragging about making a $275,000 3500 lb Zagato that comes with 510 hp? Are you kidding me? They are bragging about cars that get to 60 mph in 4.1 seconds? They even have a section on racing in their site...who are they racing against? Other Astons Martins? When we rented the Limerock track in CT we were able to get the track since we partnered up with the Aston Martin club. The Aston Martin owners made it very clear they didnt want any Vipers on the track while they were racing. And you know why. Aston Martin cant claim they are luxurious and sporty, Bentleys and Porshces and a few Benzes can outperform Aston Martins. All the Aston Martin owners have left is nostalgia...and only amongst themselves. Just like AC Cobras.
Right now Vipers claim to fame is we have the dominant road course car, the best looking and rarest American sports car made today, and that is no pushover in any kind of race. Priced so that most upper middle class hard working Americans can buy it, and you get a piece of history along with some present and future sports car technology. Well...I guess thats good enough for me