Re: Why are 1997 RT-10\'s hard to find/none for sale??
Why so low? Historic/Trivia question answer is because the tool used to make the hoods was flat worn-out. A number of cars sat in the waiting area for literally months after the "official end of the production year" waiting for good "smoothie" hoods. The desire and plan was to keep the RT/10 disinctive from the GTS by keeping the smoothie hood and RT/10 fascia...
The tool had a different idea though. So in '98 the RT/10 received the vented GTS hood and chin spoilered fascia. Several '98's were assembled with the smoothie hood, but when it became apperant that the tool really had reached the end of its life, the hoods where replaced (except for one car that accidentally left with a smoothie hood).
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So to add and clarify why the '97 RT/10 was so limited in production was mostly due to time constraints. In 1996 they closed the New Mack facility and moved production to the Conner Ave building for the '97MY. The move of course took time and they incorporated some important upgrades to manufacturing in the process. Along with the moving floor assembly line, "Rain Room", and high speed rolling dyno was the new state-of-the-art alignment machine. This giant structure dialed in the Viper's (and Prowler's) alignment to minute specs not possible with prior equipment. It was so top secret they wouldn't let me take video or pictures at the time. Ferrari was also looking into purchasing one. Their engineering staff was arriving later that afternoon to analyze the operation.
And yes the hoods created delay, but not necessarily because the blanks were out of spec, which some were, but because the pre-painted white stripes were not aligned properly with the nose section stripes. See the individual body panels were formed and painted separately then placed on racks and sent to the plant for assembly. In lesser cases the Viper Blue was not matched well enough so that had to be addressed. If you have one of these B/W Vipers you can immediately tell the car was not painted with the same paint batch.
Also consider they were making the Prowler in the same space so it was a really busy place.
The question as to why the majority of the '97 RT/10s were sold in Mich was the fact most cars went to Chrysler executives, their friends, family etc. Between leadership level and Team Viper Executive Engineer (and racer) John Fernandez selecting the candidates for the cars few if any were left to the general public. Most every order came with a personal concierge who kept the eventual owner up to date with production info on a weekly basis.
Plant tours were also set up by the concierge to coincide with their car in it's final stages of manufacturing.
IMHO the best job was the guys that drove bodyless vipers around for testing. 450 hp and +/- 2000 lbs had to be a blast.
Just before we left a Jeep Grand Cherokee rumbles in with a strange exhaust note.....Yep it had a V10. What a company!!
Anyway hope you found this interesting..............
Best, Bret.
