There have been no announcements made, no claims made, no insider information released, but a cursory glance at the Dodge Viper’s current situation is not looking good, especially with the levels of change being made throughout the Fiat Chrysler lineup and production strategies not only in North America but around the globe. The Viper is a singular model on a singular chassis with a singular engine. In the world of today’s auto companies, especially Chrysler, that’s not a good place to be and the evidence is starting to stack up to suggest that the Viper will not be around for very much longer. Why?
Slow sales – Back in April we reported IN THIS STORY that Chrysler had stopped Viper production for a few months because they had built up some much inventory that they didn’t want to make the problem worse. In that same story and announcement from Chrysler it was announced that the Viper factory teams would not be racing at Le Mans for the 2014 iteration of the race. At the time we had no idea that the factory road racing program had already been slated for death (and clearly it had) and thought that the company may have been working on upgrading the cars or otherwise trying to make themselves more competitive. Nope, they were saving money.
No racing program – Obviously that leads us to our next point of the fact that the company killed off the road racing program that the cars headlined. The Viper has been really successful in the road racing genre since the 1990s and it has won the biggest races across the globe for cars of its type through the years. The rumor has it that the program was a large financial drain on the company with no hope of any sort of self sustainability and that was that. While the road racing program was obviously not helping to set the world on fire with Viper sales, it kept the cars higly visible and in competition. Ford races Mustangs with factory backing and Chevy races Corvettes with factory backing so this leaves a pretty big void for the series and now the company. The death of the racing program is another sign that Sergio is over the whole Viper deal and sees it as a frivolous waste of resources for the company.
Less horsepower than the Hellcat – The introduction of the Hellcat Challenger and all of the fanfare with it was great but it did raise some immediate and quiet questions about the Viper. Would the Viper get this engine, too? Would Chrysler really let the baddest car they make get blown into the weeds by this hot rodded Challenger? So far the answer is a resounding yes. There has not been peep one about a 2015 Viper, about anything to do with a Hellcat engine in a Viper or even a denial that it would not happen. That’s probably the most damning part of the whole thing. The fact that they haven’t even jumped up and denied that anything like that would happen. Their silence is louder than any screaming that they could have done.
Department of redundancy department – There’s one big performance car at every company now. Not two, not five, not four…one. With Chrysler having rolled the Hellcat out in the Challenger and Charger (which we kind of consider the same car with one being a coupe and the other being a sedan) and leaving the Viper in the cold, it seems like there will be this big redundancy of big horsepower cars atop the Dodge lineup. Corvette is the halo for Chevrolet with Camaro and then on down. Ford has the Shelby Mustangs followed by more Mustangs and the Japanese companies have a similar model. Chrysler would again have a car that shares nothing from the engine or the chassis or the powertrain with any of its other vehicles at the top of the pile potentially being outperformed by “lower” models. That’s bad math and it makes no sense.
If you don’t think they’d cut the Viper, you are either misinformed or smoking some of the best stuff around. They’re talking about wrecking the Jeep Wrangler for Pete’s sake. There’s nothing there people aren’t capable of.
How long can it last ? Probably just about as long as it takes to sell off all the remaining stock along with the bits & bobs to make a few more . The Viper in Marchionne’s long term planning being the first of the remaining Mercedes based Dodge/Chrysler/JEEP’s to go away as Daimler Benz is no longer willing to renew any contracts with FCA … and even if they were .. Marchionne wants everything to be FIAT SpA based [ including the Wrangler ] in the not too distant future .
Which means all you HellCat/Challenger/Charger and Grand Cherokee fanatics …. Buy them while you can . Cause their days are numbered as well ..
So … needing another reason to bend the ole elbow today ?
On top of the Viper news as well as my revealing some of Marchionne’s long term goals …. Remember that FIAT based FWD Unibody Wrangler I’ve spoken of ?
Want to know the worst part ? IF .. Marchionne gets his way … those Unibody Wranglers will be built in … China … for all markets
When will we Americans finally get our heads around the fact that Marchionne is planning the end of the C .. in FCA … leaving the F and the A remaining to sell us all the junk they produce that even the EU won’t buy
Belly up to the bar gents . Its another round of Stranahan’s … on me 😉
I don’t think the Hellcats make the Viper any more redundant than the Z28 or ZL1 make the Corvette. In fact I think the Z28 is much closer to the Corvette than the Hellcat to the Viper: The Z28 handles, too.
I really hope they find a way to keep the Viper. Whether that’s putting a Hellcat engine in it and calling it something else (ViperCat? HellSnake?) to bring down production cost a little or finding some way to sell a few more of the things or both I couldn’t say. The V10 is cool and definitely more exotic but if it’s the only V10 Chryco is making… it’s not worth it.
Chevy launches their engines with Corvette getting the technology first, but then everything with a V8 is equipped with a very-damn-similar engine. The cost of development gets spread far and wide by the time things are said and done.
Chryco could perhaps learn from this. Take the Hellcat engine, make it somewhat more special, put it in the Viper. Next time they develop a new engine, Viper first (muscle cars & trucks on their next generation model)
Keep the Viper alive, increase power or decrease price. I still deeply desire a first or second gen Viper but don’t see it being in my budget, especially while still paying on my Mustang.
Apparently I stand corrected, just learned the price was dropped $15,000 this past month, which has already helped sales.
It takes a car guy with passion to battle all the internal forces inside the company to keep a car (or concept of a car) like Viper alive in a company when it’s not selling. It’s not easy.
Keeping Viper alive means finding a way… FOR PEOPLE TO BUY THEM. Since the Corvette continually provides more value, etc. for the $… the Viper has to be re-thought in order to be competitive in the market. That takes investment. Would you fight to pour money into Viper if it were your company? How would you show it would one day make money for the company again?
Any concept to re-tool the Viper’s concept and image places it up against something in the market that is already doing that. Corvette, Ferrari, etc. Can Fiat invest enough for the concept to win sales vs. those products? That is a tough order. I would not want that assignment.
Appears frickin Fiat is about to ruin everything, just change the name to Fiatler from Chrysler.
.. at least somebody here has a clear picture of things and actually gets it . Thats exactly what Marchionne’s plans are . Bye bye Dodge/Chrysler/JEEP …. and say hello to a mass of Fix It Again Tony’s wandering the streets and alley ways of the US .. wearing Dodge/Chrysler/JEEP badges of course
So this one is easy. Viper’s price point is too high, we need a better margin= solution: Step 1: Scrap the v-10 with a 392 hemi powered varrient and a hellcat powered varriant. Step 2: Badge engineer a Alfa Romeo based on the viper, throw lots of leather at it, give it 10 more horsepower, and add a zero to the end of the base price, call it the 9C or something Step 3: Lower the base viper’s price to arround corvette territory, hellcat viper to Z06-ZL1 territory. Step 4: Comeout with random special models until it’s time for a refresh. Step 5: “Merge” what’s left of SRT and Abarth, that scorpion logo is BA
… ahh .. but the part of the formula you’ve obviously missed out on thats driving the cost of the SRT Viper up so high ….. [ despite FCA just offering a $15,000 discount on SRT Vipers across the board ] .. is the cost of that AMG Mercedes SLS platform that the Viper is built on and Mercedes is discontinuing .. with the addition of Mercedes no longer wishing to do business with FCA because … FCA has a bad habit of not paying their bills .. on a regular basis I might add
Which is to say … A ) either FCA comes up with an entirely new platform [ which by the way FCA cannot afford to do seeing as how they haven’t created a new platform now for any of their brands going on a decade ] …
Or … B ) .. FCA decides to base the Viper on the long in the tooth Maserati RWD platform .. or …
C) ..They drop the Viper all together … no longer having the Viper as a sales rival for FCA’s Maserati and trying like hell to be resurrected Alfa Romeo brands .. not to mention used Ferrari California sales
Like to guess which one they’ll chose ?
The smart money for those in the know is ..
C ! 😉
It’s rare that i agree with you, but those are indeed excellent points you bring up. Touche’ Mr. Kid.
… and just to add insult to injury . Chrysler just announced the recall of some 2000 SRT Vipers in the US , Canada as well as Mexico .
Forget the solitary single round of Stranahan’s gentlemen . The entire case is on me .
Put the Hellcat in the Viper and lower the price. They just might start selling again.
I stopped by the SRT display at Road Atlanta on Friday. The Hellcat has 57 more horsepower, 50 more ft/lbs of torque for $70k less!
As much of a bummer it would be lose the Viper, Fiat SpA already has a halo car: Ferrari.
Hellcat engine will not even come close to fitting in the current Viper, and there is no way FCA will invest in a new Viper now. If I was betting, I would say 2015 is the last model year for the nasty snake, too bad, I know I’ll miss her. 🙁
F1 racing is really expensive, the money is needed over there for that.
Maybe I’ve got it wrong, but from my perspective, Chrysler never quite knew what they were doing with the Vipers. Kind of a “design by committee” setup, twenty different people wanted it to go in forty different directions and the results were pretty marginal, overall.
Not that I’m advocating the car’s demise, it’s an impressive piece of machinery and a boldly raised middle finger to the global stereotype that ‘Muricans only run big V8s. It’s also gotten much more refined over the years as they’ve fine-tuned the design handling and interior. I think I’m just hopeful that they’ve gone back to the drawing board with it to work out some of the groupthink aspects of it and that the Viper will return after an overhaul, snorting flames and boiling tires.
As for the notion that the Hellcat will kill it off: maybe in the short tern it will, but they can’t keep making Hellcats in the long-term. FCA has to be aware that the loophole that 707hp was squeezed through will be closed off soon enough. Expecting a one-time exception like the Hellcat to act as a halo car is pretty nearsighted.