There is just no getting around the fact that the Dodge Viper is a simply ridiculous car. Even the people who conceived it knew that. After all what every Dodge Viper has been is a massive, hot-rodded V10 truck engine with a sports car attached.
Basically the Dodge Viper started as an idle speculation. Back in 1988, the legend goes, Chrysler President Bob Lutz approached Head of Design Tom Gale and suggested the company consider making a modern version of the Shelby Cobra. By 1989 that suggestion had turned into the Viper Concept at the 1989 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Crowd reaction to the Dodge Viper Concept was ecstatic. Chrysler thought about it for a few minutes, and decided to put the Dodge Viper into production.
Fortunately Chrysler had a suitably insane engine entering production that would be perfect for the Dodge Viper. It was an 8.0-liter V10 essentially built by grafting two additional cylinders onto the existing 5.9-liter Chrysler small-block V8. Destined for use in the 3/4- and one-ton 1994 Dodge, this massive iron-block monster made 310 unstressed horsepower. For the Viper, the truck engine plans were shipped off to Chrysler's then-subsidiary Lamborghini in Italy where it was reengineered for use in a sports car. Most significantly the block material became aluminum. All the Dodge Viper needed now was a car.
The first 1992 Dodge Viper was simple to the extreme. The chassis was a simple steel tube frame covered in aggressive-looking plastic body panels. Elements of the front suspension came right off Dodge's compact pickup. The rear suspension was independent but didn't have much travel. There was a six-speed manual transmission, but no windows or exterior door handles and it was impossible to get in or out without burning your legs on the side exhaust. But the Dodge Viper had a massive 400 hp and it was glorious.
Over the years, variations on the Dodge Viper have appeared, including the GTS coupe in 1996; the engine has grown to 8.2 liters and 600 hp; and a redesigned second-generation machine arrived in 2003. But the Dodge Viper remains grandly, spectacularly, insanely ridiculous.
