The Dodge Viper?
So sayeth Jack Baruth over at Road & Track:
This is the way the Viper's world could end: not with the bang of obsolescence or defeat at the hands of its megabuck Eurotrash competitors, but with the whimper of a union contract that just happens to close one small-scale manufacturing facility. The supposed end of the Conner Avenue plant in 2017 would also be the end of the Viper. There's just no case to be made for restarting production somewhere else. It might impact FCA's ability to turn out more crossovers or something like that.
No, the greatness of the Viper is in its very spirit, its very conception. It's the idea that supercars can be built in Detroit. It's the idea that the hyper-rich sheikhs and software moguls and Russian oligarchs out there don't get an exclusive monopoly on driving a six-hundred-plus-horsepower nightmare chariot with wings that wouldn't disgrace a Bleriot monoplane. It's the idea that a working-class man in Phoenix can save up most of his life and spend his hard-earned money on something built by other hard-working Americans in Michigan and that at no point do we require the approval of Enzo Ferrari or Ferdinand Piech to make that happen.
Of course, he then goes on to relate all of the Viper's shortcomings with respect to other supercars. Frankly, this wouldn't be on my short list of what may constitute The Great American Car (my first thought would be that it was actually a truck) mainly because it never quite seems to have caught the imagination of the wider American public like, for example, either the Corvette or Mustang did. And it was never really what one might call a World Beater so I doubt many beyond our borders would think "Viper" if asked about a classic American car.
Still, even if the Viper isn't my favorite car I do agree that I love the fact that such a thing exists in the first place.
I got this link from Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit where there's a healthy (and interesting) discussion in the comments. So I thought I'd throw the idea out to our own Car Lustentsia: What would you rank as The Great American Car? And what do you think of the Viper?
And, of course, anything else you may want to toss out for consideration. (Photo is from the R&T link).
Best Deals today in www.freepromonow.com