Every Dodge Viper, Ranked
The Viper was a known quantity by the time the 21st Century rolled around. Continuous improvements had kept it fresh over the years, but it had launched in the first Bush administration, and it was growing a little stale by the second. But Chrysler—or rather, DaimlerChrysler now, as a result of a 1998 merger that saw Dodge’s parent company merge with the makers of Mercedes-Benz—wasn’t about to let its halo car expire.
So, 11 years after the first conceptual version appeared at Detroit’s annual auto show, Dodge unveiled the first look at the second generation of the Viper, in the former of the bewinged, wild-looking GTS/R coupe concept. Exactly one trip around the sun later, the production version arrived, debuting in droptop form before reaching the streets in the later part of 2002.
The new car’s design was a bit of a shift, trading in the original car’s flowing curves for sharper angles and a more aggressive countenance, but the giant-engine, cab-backwards proportions were still unmistakably Viper. Unlike the first-gen roadster, the new version—dubbed SRT-10, the abbreviation standing for Dodge’s Street & Racing Technology division—arrived as a pure convertible, without the fixed roll bar behind the cabin but with a proper folding soft top versus the tack-on canvas cover that could be manually affixed to the early RT/10s.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a car defined by its motor, the second-gen Viper came with a larger engine. There were still 10 cylinders, but their combined displacement had grown to 8.3 liters; horsepower had climbed to a cool 500 ponies, while torque came in at 525 lb-ft. The coupe, whether by virtue of its later arrival or its less relaxed mission brief, added an extra 10 horsepower and lb-ft to the mix. In both cases, a six-speed manual gearbox once again sent the power to the rear wheels alone.
The car saw a midlife refresh come 2007, which brought little in the way of alterations to the design but a fair number of changes in the name of improving performance. Most obvious was another enlargement of the V-10, which grew to 8.4 liters and now pumped out 600 hp and 560 lb-ft. (Few would have argued the Viper needed more power, but even fewer would complain about it.) The big news, however, was the new ACR version of the SRT-10, a more dedicated track-focused take on the prior ACR concept designed to mix it up with the likes of Porsche’s 911 GT models. The V-10’s output stayed the same, but a bundle of lightweighting decisions helped that power go further, while a plethora of aero add-ons that ramped up the downforce turned it into an absolute weapon.
So why does it land third on our list? Well, the middle generation was no slouch, but where the first planted a flag and the third redefined what the model could be, the second merely continued the name forward. Nothing to be ashamed of, but in this tough competition, it’s only good for a bronze.
