Why no Vipers in any magazines

[Toronto_ACR]

Can someone please tell me why there are absolutely no vipers talked about in any of the magazines. I just purchased the new Road and track magazine and it has everything else but the viper. They even compare a lowly camaro against a 2002 ZO6. What the hell is going on. Vipers have been completely forgotten. Can the magazines not get any vipers to test.

 

[yellow02]

i think they are keeping the current vipers out of the spotlite to make a bigger statement for the 03. Maybe im wrong, but thats what i would guess. It makes me a little mad too, to the public they think things have not changed since 92 cause all they ever show in most adds are red gen 1 rts. Oh well, it just makes our cars more rare i guess you could say.

 

[KingSnake97]

I agree! I just want to why Vette has about two or three diffrent magazines and we have to wait quarterly for our ONE issue! That really *****. I think we have enough VIPERS in the world to supply a monthly magazine That shows some fantastic GEN I,II and III's along with up and comming events and a special section for TECH!

Turan

 

[DEVILDOG]

THE CAR MAGS ( I SUBSCRIBE TO ALL OF THEM ) HAVE TO APPEAL TO THE MAINSTREAM FOR THEIR REVENUE. HOW MANY VIPERS SOLD TO DATE 14k?. HOW MANY vettes INFINITY & BEYOND? ( I TRADED MY C4 IN FOR MY GTS ) PERSONALLY I'M SICK AND TIRED OF ALL THE Z06 PRESS WITH IT'S WHOPPING 405HP AND ALL THE RACE COVERAGE THE FACTORY vettes GOT LAST YEAR WHILE THERE WERE NO FACTORY VIPERS TO KICK THEIR --- EVEN WITH THE SANCTIONING BODIES RESTRICTING THE VIPER'S PERFORMANCE. THE SPEEDVISION GT SERIES BEING THE WORST OFFENDER RESTRICTING THEM SO MUCH NOBODY RUNS THEM ANYMORE ( BOBBY ARCHER WENT TO SCCA TO COMPETE ). FUNNY THING IS I ONCE E-MAILED SPEEDVISION ABOUT RESTRICTING THE VIPERS TOO MUCH AND THEY SAID IF THEY DIDN'T NO OTHER MANUFACTURER WOULD BE COMPETITIVE AND THEY WOULDN'T HAVE ANY GOOD RACING. GREAT JOB SPEEDVISION NOW THERE ARE NO VIPERS TO BEAT THAT SUPERCHARGED NSX AND THE AUDI SEDANS ( WHAT A JOKE! ). I DON'T EVEN WATCH THE SPEEDVISION GT SERIES ANYMORE AS A RESULT. MAYBE THE NEW SPEED CHANNEL WILL GET IT'S S--- TOGETHER. SORRY I GOT OFF THE SUBJECT ...IT'S HARD LETTING OFF THE GO PEDAL. ANYWAY VIPERS ARE NOT MAINSTREAM AND THEY ARE TOO KICK ASP FOR THE MAGS TO HAVE TO PUT DOWN ALL IT'S MANUFACTURING COMPETITORS WHICH THE MAJORITY OF READERS OWN ie. vettes, porsche, bmw, ferrari, lambo, audi?, etc.. REMEMBER THIS IS AMERICA AND EVERYBODY LOVES AN UNDERDOG.

 

[Bruce]

Well said Jim, I couldn't agree more. In fact, I contacted Speedvision too. They wouldn't even give me a response.

PS: In the future, please unlock your caps, the threads are a little easier to read that way.

 

[George Farris]

The mag rags are not only dishonest to their readers and themselves, but they have NOOOO CLASS!!

I get my news from www.auto.com

 

[yellow02]

i have a question about car mags. like car& driver road & track.....do the car compaines pay them off at all to put in somewhat good words for their cars, or to have certian spreads in their magazines?.....just wondering if they really gave their real opinions or not.

 

[Lidquidsilver]

I might be out of my legue but I have my own theory on wh the Viper gets little or no spotlight time. Lets look at the ex-poster-cars. The Vett, Firebird, Mustang, Camaro. They all got pleanty of time. Then they became common, lost the little dreames edge. Then most of them became family cars. Do you really want to see a Viper with a baby seat and three kid in the back? The word of mouth is enough to keep people coming back for more. I think it was kept out of the spotlight on purpos. That what I think though.

 

[viperdoctor]

I took a glipse of that R&T issue in the store.

Toward the back, they have a little blurb with the picture of a silver GTS.

Basically, the blurb says if you don't have a Viper you're screwed because it's the king of the road...and it's getting more HP for 2003...

 

[KingSnake97]

Maybe if all 14 thousand or so viper owners get together and email one publisher at the same time maybe we can get some thing done. I know that there are a couple of mopar mags already but they dont cover the viper enough and when they do half the story is in black and white.

 

[Lidquidsilver]

Also think of how popular Vipers are ever without the advisetising. Every one I talk to knows **** well what a Viper is, that might be my fault though. Plus all the web sites and fourms maby the rest of the world doesn't know what they're missing.

 

[Jerry Dobson]

Do you guys remember years ago when xxxx got caught picking "Car of the Year" based on who spent the most advertising dollars during that year?

 

[Joel]

The UK based magazine CAR say this in their summary of the Viper and I quote "Still on sale,just,not that theres any rational reason why you might be interested. It might be a modern classic but the Viper is massively expensive,cheaply built and a pig to drive quickly....Our Choice..Not even in a parallel taste-free universe" Well what a bunch of b*****ds. Needless to say I don't buy that mag anymore.

 

[Lidquidsilver]

That's always an idea.

 

[CAS]

I wrote a pretty heated letter to Motor Trend asking them why they ignore the current Vipers and swoon over the 405 HP, or any model, ZO6. I never got a reply...

Letter To Motor Trend

 

[Toronto_ACR]

The only reason that I can think of for the snub is that the magazines are paid for the ads they place. Chrysler I believe could care less about the publicity. Meanwhile GM is selling quite a few corvettes so of course their is a big incentive to the magazines by the manufacturer to start writing up ads. But what does not make sense is why the Viper is not even compared to anything. Road and Track has a lowly Camaro as a comparison to the Vette. I think the blame has to go to Chrylser more than anything. Chrysler runs the company like a bunch of clowns. They should be spending some of the money on advertising. And I am not talking about ads for a minivan. But all the talk in the world will not change anything. The viper is a world class car that wins races but it will continue to get snubbed.

 

[Toronto_ACR]

Like I said guys. It is the stupidity of Chrysler as to why the Vipers keep getting snubbed. That is why they let a very capable guy like Bob Lutz leave to go to GM. Unfortunatelu it will not change.

 

[BigsViper]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by steelgts:
i belive that in that same issue they use the gen 2 viper gts to a new 405hp z06 . Mybe covers about 2 sq inches of the a page.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No Flame intended, but could someone please interpret this for me??

Personally, I like the exclusivity of the Viper very much. I don't need no stinkin' auto rag to tell me how awesome it is. I know, it get's frustrating listening to all the wannabe's claiming GM won this and Saleen or Porshe that, but just tell them to meet you on the track and prove Dodge dominance with your car. Or if you can't and it means that much to you to have everyone else think your car is the baddest in the land, call Levin or LPE or another tuner that will help you make it so!

 

[treynor]

The Viper got plenty of coverage in '96 when the GTS came out. Not much has changed since then -- incremental stuff, but nothing revolutionary until the '03 debuts. We get about as much coverage as do the other exotics.

FWIW, I've entered my yellow Viper in the Sport Compact Car "ultimate streetcar" contest for this year. There's some small chance it'll be voted into the top 10 and actually compete this fall...

 

[Snakester]

I've long thought that the relative absence of current Viper articles is because the car has been out a while, and the full '03 testing will probably be done in the next 6 months.

Once they test the '03 Viper, it will again fill all of the auto magazines, and we will see various comparisons against all sorts of speedy cars.

I think that it's naive to think that these journalists write in an unbiased fashion, soley because they love cars.

I still can't get over Motor Trend's "performance car" comparison that picked the M3 over the Z06 because it had a back seat.

So I see the reporting as 75% marketing, and 25% car enthusiast writing.

Still, everybody knows about the Viper's great performance, and style.

And no doubt the Viper name will be refreshed in everybody's mind again when the Gen III models start getting plastered around everywhere later this year.

-Dean.