Viper’s near 20 year production run comes to an end in July. Love them or hate them the car did a lot for the image of Chrysler when it went from wildly popular show car to a 1993 production model. It was an era that saw Chrysler revamping its whole line up and injecting a lot of excitement into the domestic marketplace. Chrysler has since self-immolated from a series of botched product decisions and a reputation of poor quality cars. Fiat scooped up the embers and is now in the process of trying to turn the brand back into a profitable enterprise. There are hints that the Viper may help them do that after a couple year hiatus.
During a press conference yesterday, Ralph Gilles, the design chief for Chrysler, was showing sketches and pictures of models that are to debut in the coming years. He slipped a rendering of what a 2012 Viper would look like (at this stage of design anyway) assuming that it is given the greenlight for production.
The company obviously has bigger fish to fry than the Viper, but we think that Fiat, a company that has a long history in racing, and the parent of Chrysler, will bring the car back because it is an anchor for the brand and as Gilles mentioned in his speech, kids around the world drive Vipers in video games. There’s something to be said for that. We’d also assume they’ll sell the car for a profit too, but that’s just our twisted logic.
One interesting line that came from Gilles was, “I’ve never felt better about where Chrysler is at.”
That’s really saying something.
Source — Detroit News — Viper may return
