By the late 1980s Chrysler’s K-car renaissance was getting stale and sales showed it. The management knew that they had to bring out something special in order to stir up new interest, and there was a push to maximize the benefits of having Lamborghini in-house (at the time, Lamborghini was owned by Chrysler).  Designer Tom Gale created the vehicle with the help of an independent team of engineers, and when the V8-powered concept car was shown at the 1989 Detroit Auto Show, order requests came pouring in, even before the show had ended.

This video is from the official introduction, which I believe (but am not certain) took place in April, 1992. Lee Iacocca himself is at the podium to introduce the car, and Shelby is riding passenger. I’m not sure who the driver of the car is. But that’s here nor there. Listen to Iacocca as he talks about how the Viper came about, and try to picture half of it flying in today’s world. They’d be on the evening news being fired publicly, not praised for bringing a car nobody thought would ever be built again to production.