Dodge Viper
Supercar Saturday EP6:
We all have watched Ford V Ferrari, one of the best movies on motorsport. The story of Ford beating Ferrari in their own game after seeing a huge crash in the history of the US. It has a number of instances which would ignite the love of motorsport and just sportsmanship in you. The determination and perfection of Ken Miles along with the brilliance and craftsmanship of Carol Shelby just makes you relate to them and motivate you to achieve great things as well. But do you remember why did Ford go racing. The man who gave this brilliant idea to Ford. LEE IACOCCA. But who thought that he would be the reason we saw the legendary Dodge Viper. The car we loved in NFS Most Wanted! To be honest, that car meant a lot. I loved the track we had to race on to get that car. The face-off style of start near the ferry wheel. Nostalgia!
Today, is the story of this hero or should I say, Anti-hero. We tend to like heroes when we are younger, but as we grow older we just relate so much to the villeins that some of their actions become a part of our actions or behaviour. But before life got real and we started to relate to Joker from The Dark Knight, we loved one villein or a anti-hero, The Dodge Viper.
The car came with a cult status. You could see it in the design, it wasn’t for everyone but for the people who wanted to feel like a villein.
To story of Viper starts with the friendship of Lee Iacocca and guess who, Carol Shelby. The making of the iconic and beloved Shebly Cobra kicked off the Ford-Shelby partnership. Shelby imported the AC ACE a failed 2 seater and swapped in a small block V8 from ford. There it was, one of the most iconic and very first so call sportscar from Shelby American. It was fast, unsafe and fun! Sounds quite American to me. But this was the 60’s. After which America entered the gas crisis. They couldn’t afford the big gas-guzzling V8’s and V10’s. The Japanese though were ready for this. The economical cars from the Japanese brands were flying out of the dealerships leaving the Americans in the dust. One such victim was the Chrysler group. Chrysler asked the government for help to keep it going and due to some political background Iacocca found the seat of the Director of the Chrysler group.
Iacocca introduced a lot of reforms to the Chrysler group and built a lean company. He also created the K platform where all you had to do is select the body you wanted and you got that car with the same platform. The only thing that differed from the hatchback to the wagon you are driving was the body. Underneath it was all the same. This might be a everyday thing for cars today but in the 70’s, this was a novel concept. A revolution. American cars were saved. The people needed something like this. The cars were slow, underpowered, terrible to be honest but the cars were just perfect for the time.
On some other piece of land, an Air Force veteran by the name of Bob Lutz had joined BMW as VP of sales. With a love for fast cars and the drive to make one he laid grounds for one of the best badges BMW had seen, M. He also developed the iconic 3 series platform which was loved by the new drivers it was for. After a truck load of experience in BMW he moved to The US to punish ford for the dreadful Pinto. He developed the Group B Legend, MK 3 Escort and joined the Chrysler Group as an executive. What he wanted to do was to create the ultimate drivers car. A fast machine which was just for the driver and the sheer experience that accompanies it which would give you a shot of adrenaline and replace your coffee. But the problem was that Chrysler didn’t make fast cars. It made K cars. But this wasn’t going to stay.
To pitch in a successful plan of making the ultimate drivers car he took his friend at Chrysler, Tom Bale, for a ride in his version of hand-built Shelby Cobra. He had modified the Cobra to his likes and built it over the years to portray his love for cars. Tom Bale was impressed by the feel a performance centric car gave him (A car guy was born that day). Back to the story, the following week, a number of meetings were held to push this idea. After a successful series of meetings, the work on the first Viper prototype started. Designers started to carve the hearts out as a full fledged muscle car was about to be born. A long nose, low profile something like a Jaguar E-Type( yes it’s not F-type). A true spiritual successor to the Shelby Cobra. Just like the SLS-AMG.
Lutz started to assemble the Viper team in secrecy. He pulled in people like Francois Castaing who built the engines for 24 hours of Le Mans, Dick Winkles from the performance division who made Lamborghini engines, Roy Sjoberg who had his hands in the development of the Corvette. Sjoberg called out just 21 people from the crowd to bring this legend to life.
Just like the last posts, every car designer has a set of rules. Lutz had too. Rule 1- The budget was 50 Million.
Rule 2- The car should be production ready by 1992 Detroit Auto Show
Rule 3- Be ethical, moral and don’t get into trouble.
This was a dream place for every designer. No beurocracy. No impressing. Just one purpose, GET RID OF THE BORING AMERICAN CARS.
This was all a secretive mission with a limited budget literally 5% of what other companies put in for a supercar. After sharing parts from the truck division in Dodge, the first prototype was ready. But there was a problem. The Big Boss. The king of affordable and cheap cars, LEE IACOCCA. Lee had a history of bringing companies out of the pit and he totally relied on affordability for the same reason. But before all of this bureaucratic heap of dung he was the man behind the 1st gen Mustang. Lutz had a plan. He brought someone, LEE would never say no to. The man behind the success of the ford performance division, Carol Shelby.
The Viper was revealed to the world in the 1989 International Autoshow personally by Lutz. It had a a V8 and a load of truck parts. That was the Viper when it was launched. Iacocca saw the scale of the project and increased the team to 85 people.
They used journalist to criticize the awful V8 and build pressure to change it. The Italians were perfecting their V12’s and the Japanese were working on small displacement Turbocharged engines but Dodge went their own way. They put a 8.0L V10 inside the Viper, which produced 300hp and 610Nm. Where did this came from? TRUCKS! They sent this engine to Lamborghini whish was a subsidiary of the Chrysler group and the Italians sent back the same engine but made out of aluminum.
The truck derived supercar!
One night Iacocca and Lutz were on a drive in the only Viper that was allowed on the road, and Iacocca agreed to start the production of this beast. It was first seen driving as a safety car in the Indy 500 in 1991 driven by none other than Caroll Shelby himself.
The Viper was a sensation not just because it was a fast car but it was all American, developed and made ready for production in just a couple of years and had the soul of the original Cobra and blessings from it’s father.
Dodge made a statement with the Viper that it wasn’t just a minivan brand. They were here to kick ass. So did the Viper with the Corvette ZR1. If you wanted to by this car you had one option. No varients. Just one damn thing. People loved the car. It was something American.
Over the years, the Viper was refined to suite the new laws but it always remained to be an outlaw. The raw power you feel when you rev the 8.0L behemoth engine is just unmatched. The Viper we saw in the NFS Most Wanted was the the Viper SRT, the updated version. But over the years the Viper has just gotten faster and better. It still remains as one of the favorite cars for every enthusiast.
THE REAL ANTI-HERO.
Thanks for tuning in. See you in the next EP.
