A Very Cool Person Bought a New Dodge Viper This Year
Photo: Stellantis
Folks, we’ve got an extremely excellent person in our midst. I was looking over Stellantis’s quarterly sales report (because I am strange) when I realized something that left my jaw on the floor.
Someone purchased a new Dodge Viper this year. A hero. A king. A person with taste and money you and I can only dream of. That’s right. This person strolled into a Dodge dealership and went home with a new-but-still-at-least-five-years-old Dodge Viper.
It’s a vehicle that, of course, went out of production all the way back in 2017, and for those who aren’t keeping track, we are currently more than halfway through 2022. Many of the cars arriving on near-empty dealer lots are 2023 model years. It’s hard to say what year this Viper was. Smart money would say it was from the final model year, but who knows? Perhaps it was one of the five special edition Vipers FCA put out in its final model year.
This isn’t exactly uncommon. Last quarter, our good friend Larry Shiteater (pronounced Shy-teeter) bought a new Dodge Dart years after it went out of production. This sort of thing happens all the time, but it’s rare to see a car like the Viper sell this way.
That being said, and Stellantis being Stellantis, there was one other zombie sports car that came off the books in the second quarter: an Alfa Romeo 4C. Yep. That vehicle went out of production a mere two years ago. Is it as cool as the Viper? Hell no, but it is interesting.
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The Viper, of course, went on sale originally back in 1991 with a measly 8-liter V10 and 400 horsepower. After five generations (three if you’re Adam Ismail), those numbers grew to 8.4-liters and over 640 horsepower. Excellent.
I just want to meet this person and shake their hand. They are keeping the Viper flame alive. It’s a car that really shouldn’t exist as “new” anymore, and 10 cylinders with 8.4 liters just don’t have a place in today’s car society. But then again, I don’t care. It’s fuckin’ awesome. Good for this person.
Maybe the buyer even got a good deal. It’s doubtful considering the cheapest fifth-generation Viper currently for sale on Autotrader is a tick under $130,000. On the other end of the spectrum is a half-million dollar 2017 Viper GTC with just 8 miles on the clock. Be right back. Need to sob over the fact I’ll never own one.
They (I) say cars die two deaths. One is when they go out of production, and another when the final leftover zombie car is sold. Maybe there are more new Vipers out there. We can only hope they find good homes, soon.
