Well, maybe......but then, the ZR-1 has the same cheap interior and the same lousy seats, and the same GM "quality fit and finish" (orange peel, anyone?) as the rest of the Vettes, a sticker well north of 100k, and it supposedly is selling. Get down to the regular base Vette, or even the Gran Sport, and you're comparing a mass-produced car with lesser performance to a hand-built Viper; of course it sells better, because it's a lot cheaper. The most direct comparison with the Vette (other than the ZR-1) would be some sort of "Viper Lite" (think Firepower), which to this point, never got built. I think the case can be made that the Viper was never meant to compete with the Vette at all, any more than the AC Cobra was; the Viper is and always has been a low-production, specialty sports car intended to appeal to those for whom the Vette was not enough, performance or driving experience wise. The Viper was never intended to be a mass-production, mass-appeal car. By contrast, the Z-06, and now the ZR-1 Vettes were GM attempts to produce a low-production car that matched the Viper. How successful that was, depends on which part of the automotive universe one is in. For the drag strip and the street "bragging rights" part of it, I'd call it a success; for the track, and everything else, I think not (if we're comparing 100k+ cars, that implies ZR-1 vs. ACR; otherwise, the better comparison is Gen IV base Viper to Z-06). With that said, I don't see Z-06 Vettes exactly flying off dealer lots where I am; in fact, they're being as heavily discounted as base Vipers, if not more so.
I know that for you and many others, drag racing is the end-all, be-all of motorsport, but there are those of us who feel otherwise, and for us, a 100k Viper is a far better bargain than comparable products from Porsche, Ferrari, Audi, Nissan, etc. The Viper has been, to use your words, "outside the mainstream" for eighteen years, during which a lot of people have predicted its imminent demise every year; in spite of that, there have been enough of us "few, crazy purists" to keep it alive and still kicking tail.
BTW, for all of those who keep doing these stock-for-stock drag racing comparisons, with the times both Vettes and Vipers are now running, aren't you required to have a roll cage in the car, or did I miss the memo on the 11.5 rule being tossed out the window? I mean, seeing that a cage is not so practical on the street, aren't we really talking "dedicated drag car" at that point (in which case, what's the point of nanny controls and a nicer interior?)? Or is this merely about "bragging rights", and dare I say it, street racing?
One last thing; no properly designed sports car needs nanny controls to be safely driven on the street in anything resembling a normal manner, by a COMPETENT driver (as opposed to a wannabe), and the wannabes don't belong in a Viper or anything like it to begin with; they can just as easily kill themselves in a Vette, (and a lot of other cars) nanny tech and all.
) while in motion. And I loved to drive that car the way it's built to driven...with respect.
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