ealand0001

Performance is close, but from what I've seen the details and quality (especially the paint) goes to the viper. Personally, my belief is the gen 5 wasn't marketed well and the host of improvements were not really showcased well.

The interior isn't just light years ahead of the old one, but better than many expensive rivals. The car is easier to drive. It has every nanny known now if you want it on.

The manual only and marketing held it back, but it is a great sports car. A dying breed in looks. Still curvy while eveything else goes all polygons on us.

I'm not sure what to do with my 08 acr. I don't think it will be as valuable as the new acr, but it will probably be the second most desirable viper. It's paid off and will sit in the garage a bit longer. Who knows...maybe I will keep it until I can see how this goes. Or maybe I should start looking at new acrs like I was before...my wife might actually start doing worse than just casually mentioning there is an orange object blocking her access to the garage still. I said it would be gone a while ago.

Mr.E.G.

I agree with all that. If you only ever owned the Viper you have, it's like, aww shucks. Only one of the fastest cars ever sold. Haha. But still, if you can feasibly get a new ACR, I'd say go for it. You'd be little more than a safety deposit box for it. It's not like it will ever depreciate to nil.

Mr.E.G.

Also, I'm super tired. I realize the above does not meet my normal standard of writing.

JonBoy

Simple: because I can't afford a $100K car (which is what it costs up here in Canada). Oh, sure, I can afford PAYMENTS on a $100K car, but who wants that? Not I!

I don't believe or know that the Z06 is objectively the better car, either. My understanding is that the Viper TA and Z06 are pretty much equal around any track (for the first few laps, at least, after which the Viper will lead because the Z06 is suffering from overheating) and straight line numbers are pretty much identical.

Billj747

An $81K (cheapest I could option) 1LZ Z06 is not going to beat a $89K (cheapest I could option) Viper SRT.

You can build a fully optioned 3LZ Z06 with the Z07 Stage 3 aero package and 8spd trans for $118K which still might not be faster than the fully optioned Viper TA 2.0 for $113/k. You can easily add on another $5K worth of nonsense in building the Z06 but at the end of the day, i'm not sure you can clearly say the Viper is a much more expensive car.

The Vipers base price is also similar to the Cayman GT4... and it has almost double the power and is a lot faster than a GT4.

I'm sure most of the Z06s sold will have the 8spd auto trans and a lack of an automatic option, lack of shared parts (like the base Corvette), and the image of it being 'raw' (which its quite refined these days) hurts the Viper's sales.


They truly are great cars and its sad to see it go, and to read comments from people who have never driven one repeat the same drivel they read in magazines.

Chuck S

I've been driving long enough to remember when Ford discontinued the Mustang. Some buddies ordered them to have "last year of production" cars they anticipated would become investments.

Ford customers -- that's Ford dealers, not us! -- rebelled and flatly told Ford they wanted the cars to remain in production. Which, of course, they have. At least these guys didn't pay a premium for their "last year of production" cars!

Dodge dealers have a lot to say about the Viper assuming there's production space available. Lack of or better use of production facilities was surely another reason Honda discontinued our S2000s. Highly automated/robotized production facilities don't like small production runs and hand labor is prohibitively expensive. Examine the model lines of the 1950s and 1960s. Two and four door sedans; two and four door "hard top" (no B pillar) sedans; heck, two and four door station wagons. A couple of choices of 6-cylinder engines and many more V8s. In a half dozen trim lines. But these cars were still largely hand assembled and the reason you could order them off an a la carte menu. All we get now are packages. Heck I don't think there were ANY options for the S2000 other a limited choice of color/interior color.

-- Chuck

Marioshi

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...d-more-feature

According to C and D, the Vette posted the 2nd fastest lap time they have ever done around VIR slotting between the 918 and the 650S. Well ahead of any Viper they have had out. Just saying, I don't know if you conclusion holds up 100% of the time that the Viper is faster around the track.

The overheating issues are alarming but remember the car is in it's infancy. I am sure GM will work to improve it over the course of it's run. It's damn amazing that a 80k American car beat a 267k McLaren around the track IMO.

Billj747

C&D's LL is probably one of the worst sources to compare cars. VIR was repaved and widened a few years ago and to make matters worse, the event is conducted with 4-5 different drivers with greatly varying backgrounds and experience. They run the event over a few days and take the better part of a day (killing the tires) to get comfortable with the cars.

I often see two cars of equivalent performance who get different drivers and the lap times vary by multiple seconds. There is only 1, maybe 2 of C&D's staff who is decent but I wouldn't use any of it to get an idea of which car was faster. You really need to use the same driver and back to back the cars at the same time of day and weather conditions to get a true representation of the car's performance.

But then again magazines are created to fuel bench racing and sell cars, for better or worse.

0.02

Marioshi

I understand, but you gotta admit that that time is pretty damn low...

rob-2

My facts might be old but I thought the Viper held 9 track records. Those might be displaced by the 918 and GTR now.

Don't get me wrong I think the Z06 is amazing value. I like both cars, I just think the Viper is more car.