2008 Dodge Viper

Editor: G.R. Whale
A race car, with mufflers, air conditioning, and plates.

Driving Impressions

Rotate the key to ignition, depress the clutch, push the red Start button, and the Viper shatters Sunday morning silence with a cacophony of odd-firing sounds from its V10 engine and bellowing pipes. And you thought it only looked loud.

From here on, everything you do must give the car due consideration for its abilities, and unless you race regularly or work in automotive testing, your own lack of abilities. This is the only production 600-hp car sold in the United States that does not have all-wheel drive, electronic stability control, or both, and as such is not recommended for inflated egos or the inexperienced. The Viper is a brutally honest car and if you direct it to do something stupid, it will do something stupid.

That said, the Viper is actually quite docile trundling around town. The new twin-disc clutch takes less effort and offers smoother, more precise engagement, so you can get in motion without even using the throttle.

The fastest launches are not done with your foot on the floor as that would merely spin the back tires; on many road surfaces you'll need second gear before the Viper gains good traction and lunges toward the horizon like a greyhound with ears laid back.

When it reaches the heart of its power in second gear, you've passed the legal speed limit in most states, with four gears remaining. If you took the average interstate on-ramp as fast as possible you'd hit the highway doing somewhere north of 120 mph. Find an open track long enough, and the Viper coupe is said to top 200 mph. Our experience suggests it pulls hard at any speed. Expect no more than 20 minutes out of a tank of fuel at peak velocity.

On the other hand, you can drive around never exceeding 1500 rpm (out of 6300) and still reach 80 mph in the same time most plebian cars do. Extremely tall gearing means a Viper will idle at more than 40 mph in top gear. Its low-rpm torque and excellent tractability allows it to go uphill at 1000 rpm in fifth gear without complaint. The new shifter and gearbox are a big improvement over the old one, but they retain the irritating skip-shift function that sends the lever from first to fourth in slow-speed acceleration to help achieve a better EPA fuel-economy rating.

And despite raising horsepower by nearly 100, the car is more efficient, with EPA ratings up to 13/22 for 2008. Making the ultimate sacrifice (driving a Viper sensibly) we recorded better than 16 mpg in everyday driving. Moderate weight and tall gears have their advantages.

Five- and six-hundred horsepower cars are more common everyday, but nothing with this power level weighs as little as the Viper's 3450 pounds. Indeed, only some non-U.S. exotics and the Bugatti Veyron, at more than a million dollars for its 987 horsepower, offers a significantly better power to weight ratio.

Ride comfort is par for the course on a car that changes direction like this and can pin your own weight against the door or seatbelt. Run-flat tires are no longer employed and the foot-wide Michelin Pilot Sport 2s give superb grip without the small-bump punishment run-flats impart. Suspension bits are all aluminum and nicely calibrated for poor road compliance and razor-sharp response. Some super-serious types might like a bit more rebound control in back, easy to accomplish using aftermarket parts.

Brakes are immense and easy to modulate; a light touch of the pedal brings mild slowing, with retarding increasing directly with more pedal pressure. Fade is not an issue, the ABS is ideally tuned, and the net effect is a controlled crash with no damage.

A few cars may brake as well, generate similar lateral grip, get around a race course with similar lap times, or accelerate like this, but few can do all like a Viper, and none can do it for the money.