Driving a cartoonist's fantasy
The Dodge Viper GTS is the ultimate power tool
Its design flaunts anything in autodom. Big, bulging fenders with
wheels that look like they belong on some kind of eighteen-wheeler,
they're so big. The windows are tiny, pinched portholes through which
you can see barely anything, and two big exhaust pipes poke out of
the car's defiantly hiked rear end. The car's profile is almost too
expressive, bulging just a little too much in all the right places,
sort of like Jessica Rabbit. Cool little cartoony details abound,
from the polished-aluminum fuel filler cap to the buttons that
release the doors electrically.
The Dodge Viper GTS&emdash;the so-called "grand touring" version
of Chrysler's overblown and outrageous RT/10 roadster isn't my cup of
tea, but it has no problem at all living up to the expectations
engendered by its rough-and-ready looks. Cartoonishness aside, it's a
wonderful performance car that only gets better the faster you go.
Simply starting the car up fulfills most of those adolescent
automotive fantasies we've all at one time or another felt. After a
key twist&emdash;and the flicking of a big metal switch underneath
one of those James-Bond-style flip-up red missile lanucher
covers&emdash;the entire car rumbles to life. It's as if the thing
were alive. The engine, a huge 8-liter V-10 originally destined for
(and used in) trucks, shakes the car's entire plastic body along with
it, throbbing with every turn of the crankshaft. You rock gently in
the wide leather seat. Despite the extra sound deadening in this
version, the rumble is still enough to drown out the stereo.
It only gets scarier as you get underway, the engine crackling and
popping while you putter along. For the most part, puttering along is
what you should do unti; you're used to the thing; launching the
Viper without inducing wheelspin&emdash;especially in first&emdash;is
something that takes a lot of practice. Give it a lot of gas, and it
will spin the wheels all the way through first, second, and even
third. (A colleague of mine joked that the proper way to do it was to
start in fourth and then downshift to second&emdash;it's much to the
car's credit that not only does this tactic work, but that the car
remains completely smooth while doing so.) Dropping the clutch at
around 2000 rpm seems to work best; you get a bit of a chirp&emdash;
And then you're off. It's barely a couple of seconds before you're
slamming the lever into second, and hanging on for dear life. 100
km/h flies by in an impossible four seconds, and the quarter-mile
mark can be reached in 12 seconds without much effort, the car
roaring and rumbling around you. Just keep your foot in it, and hang
on for dear life.
If you're able to hold on to yourself and your bladder past the
quarter-mile mark, by which time you're travelling at 180 or so, the
Viper suddenly becomes a lot less unruly, a lot less violent, and a
whole lot more fun to drive. The steering lightens up significantly,
and the huge tires mean that you can carve through a corner at pretty
much any speed you like&emdash;after a couple of practice laps around
Putnam Park road course in Indiana, I was lapping in fourth gear
where most cars I had driven would stay in second and third all the
way around.
Come to think of it, taking a road course in a higher gear is
probably the advisable thing to do. With all of the V-10's low-end
grunt (450 bhp and 550+ lb-ft of torque), and the Viper's lack of any
kind of traction control, it would probably be all too easy to spin
off into the weeds by gassing it too much in a corner. Power
oversteer is fun, of course, and the Viper is more controllable than
most, but it's not something you want to do at such high speeds in a
car that doesn't belong to you. (Buy the car, then buy a track.)
That you don't have to switch gears all that often is definitely a
boon. The Viper's 6 speed gearbox, designed to handle all of the
torque that it does, is linked to a heavy clutch and clonks through
the gears in a very nonchalant and imprecise fashion. The shifts
aren't easy, either, because first, third and fifth are offset to the
left from second, fourth and sixth. (Thankfully, the
clutch&emdash;like all of the pedals&emdash;is at least adjustable
for height and reach, something that I discovered right away that I
needed to do.)
At high speeds, all of the twitchiness leaves the Viper, and it
seems a helluva lot more planted than it does on normal roads.
Perhaps an effect of all of the wind and road noise simply masking
all that's wrong with the car, perhaps an effect of the driver's
concentration, this is one of the few cars I've driven that feels
really good when going at speeds double, nay, triple, most speed
limits.
Off the track and around town, the situation is inevitably worse.
On anything but a perfectly paved road, the huge Michelin Pilots want
to follow every rut and gauge in the asphalt, making steering a
straight line a handful for even the most attentive driver. Over
bumps the entire body creaks and groans&emdash;not that it isn't
stiff, but the fiberglass shell isn't particularly well bolted down
or anything. Seeing out of the cockpit through windows I could cover
by putting my hands together is difficult to say th least. The engine
shakes and shudders like a truck engine should, its exhaust note
incredibly agricultural-sounding, so much worse than when it's
spinning at speed. At idle, it harrumphs and sputters, constantly
requiring that you give it some gas&emdash;something that will earn
you no friends in a nice, quiet neighborhood.
Worst of all, when driving even at the most moderate pace, the car
uses enough gas that you can almost see the gauge moving from F to E
as you tool around town. The Viper was by far the biggest drain on my
pocketbook of any media vehicle I've driven thus far; I spent nearly
two hundred bucks in just one week keeping it fueled.
Having said that, at this price point, who really cares? If you
can afford the ninety grand or so to put yourself in one of these
things, you'll more than likely be able to afford to keep yourself in
it. Besides, it's regular gas that the GTS uses, not premium, which
is a small consolation.
And that ninety grand sure buys a lot of attention. You get more
stares than any car on the road; leave the car in a parking lot for
just a few minutes, and when you return, you're sure to have a crowd
around it. Kids of all ages want to have their pictures taken in
it&emdash;just make sure that if they want to sit in the driver's
seat, they don't have the keys.
Which is, I guess, what the Viper is all about in the end. It is a
way for us&emdash;or at least, those of us who can afford
it&emdash;to indulge our adolescent fantasies. To drive the car that
we saw back in those cartoons of yore. To blast down a dragstrip as
fast as we've always dreamed. To brag about going 300 km/h, and
having the pictures to prove it. To burn thousands of dollars worth
of rubber just by giving the gas pedal a little tap. To&emdash;dare I
say this&emdash;impress the girls. Taken on that level, the Viper is
a wondrous, towering success, and a testament to how much Chrysler is
willing to indulge its designers and engineers, to keep them on the
cutting edge, even if it's the cutting edge of Speed Racer or Captain
America.
Do I want one? Absolutely not. Do I love it? Oh yes. Did I impress
the girls? Not unless you count the woman whose eight-year-old
grandkid had dragged her across the Wawa lot and wanted her to buy
him one. But on a brief drive down an interstate, dozens of people
were moving out of the left lane at a rate I didn't think possible.
That's gotta be worth something.