What Made the Original Dodge Viper the Most Dangerous Modern Sports Car - R&T from cars
Please contact our support team for help.
Thank you! Our engineers will investigate your issue.
Incident Number: 18.2fad2c17.1663739913.2a7a3b2b
Dodge Vipers have long been known as widow-makers because they lack basic safety features and technology that we take for granted in our average commuter cars. With a whopping 8.3-liter engine under the hood of most, with small variations in that displacement, these home-grown American supercars are powerful, prestigious, and, as the Viper name eludes to, poisonous.
What makes the Dodge Viper so dangerous?
Inside and out, the Dodge Viper is a truly raw and amazing machine. It turns heads just from the sound of the roaring V10 engine, and it doesn’t disappoint in appearances. Whether it’s an early generation or one of the last, it’s easy to see why so many drivers love the driver-focused experienced of the track-oriented vehicle, but it doesn’t come without some downfalls of its own. In fact, the cars have proven to be deadly on more than one occasion, as we learned last year from the fatal and tragic accident with JR Garage, as HotCars kept us updated.
It takes an experienced driver
My husband had owned his 3rd generation Dodge Viper since before we had met and dedicated as much time behind the wheel as he had under the hood — even after the unfortunate incident where, and I stand by this, I wasn’t the person who blew up the engine, for once. Then, it was wrecked again after he drove the supercar into a ditch.
I had seen many videos and read every blog that explained that the Viper was a car unlike any other because it took a true driver to handle properly, but sometimes, all it takes is the wrong footwork at the wrong time, in the wrong weather conditions, and even the most experienced driver is at the car’s mercy.
RELATED: Dodge Viper Prices are Dropping But the Car is Still Deadly
What makes the car so dangerous?
What is it about the striking Dodge Viper that makes the car so famous? After all, it didn’t receive the nickname of ‘widow-maker’ for no reason. Under the hood is a large displacement V10 that demands torque and power, and it rests as far back as possible, giving the car a surprising amount of agility when navigating corners. But, it does lack a lot of the standard safety features we take for granted in modern-day cars, the most essential of which being traction control.
RELATED: The Private Exotic Rental Car Business Isn’t for the Faint of Heart
The Dodge Viper has proven to live up to its reputation as a dangerous piece of machinery, but just like any other high-horsepower car, this American supercar takes a certain level of expertise and finesse to truly, and safely, master.
The Dodge Viper was the last truly scary sports car. The original RT/10 roadster made 400 hp—with no airbags, ABS, or other safety nets. Hell, it didn’t even have exterior door handles. Legend has it that 30 percent of RT/10s were crashed on the way home from the dealer. Unbelievable, but rooted in truth: In 2000, the IIHS’s Highway Loss Data Institute revealed that the 1997-99 Viper, which stickered close to $70,000, cost insurance companies more per incident than any other vehicle, averaging seven times the payout of a typical collision claim. We spoke with two experts about what made the RT/10 such a handful: Bob Lutz, the father of the Viper, and Bob Woodhouse, whose Omaha dealership was No. 1 in Viper sales numerous times. The Viper’s thorny reputation paid off. Lutz credits it with reviving Chrysler’s image when the automaker was gasping to survive. “The bigger risk would have been to do nothing,” he says.
This story originally appeared in Volume 4 of Road & Track.
SIGN UP FOR THE TRACK CLUB BY R&T FOR MORE EXCLUSIVE STORIES