Speaking yesterday at an Automotive Press Association event, Chrysler Vice Chairman and President Jim Press revealed that Chrysler has “been approached by outside individuals who want to work with us to buy the asset and sustain Viper going forward.” Who are they outside individuals? Well that’s a secret, of course. But someone, hopefully, maybe, wants to buy the rights and equipment to make the Viper in the future. As a car fan, I think this is a nice development. No matter what happens to Chrysler, the legendary Viper would live on the way that the Seven or Cobra live on today. At this point, Chrysler is selling about 80 Vipers per month– which is probably more than a low volume hand-assembler could handle in production. But presumably the amount of interest would drop when you could no longer get a car with a dealership warranty (even though it would have been at a Dodge dealership, that’s something). From Chrysler’s business standpoint, why? What is the entire Viper program really worth? $100 million perhaps. That’s barely enough money to put up new wallpaper in the bathrooms at Chrysler’s headquarters. Meanwhile, when they eventually do sell the entire Dodge brand off, the Viper is an absolutely crucial asset to its image. But then, that wouldn’t fit the perfect profile of a Cerberus strip and flip. And by selling off little pieces of the company– like the Viper– that’s exactly what we’re seeing.
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I always loved both the viper styling & performance #’s. If I could only afford one & it had a warranty….
IMHO the styling is better than the vette, even if the performance isn’t up there.
Is the Viper “crucial” to Dodge’s brand image? That strikes me as a debatable point. Certainly the Viper has been an iconic model, but I wonder whether its usefulness to Chrysler has passed. Times have changed. Brute power has less appeal.
At any rate, if Ford can do just fine with the Mustang as its halo sporty car, what’s wrong with Dodge relying upon the Challenger? Whatever else you can say about it, the Challenger at least has much better economies of scale than the Viper.
The Challenger doesn’t have the pop culture chops to be a halo.
I’ll jump off the cliff with Dr Lemming:
The Viper is so irrelevant to the Dodge brand it might as well be sold off (and saved). Even 80 Vipers a month sounds a little high considering the sheer ridiculousness of this car. It’s much crazier than the Corvette, and I’d imagine less of a car you can live with.
If you mention “Dodge” to the average consumer, the models that come back are probably the Ram and the Durango. Goes to show you exactly what Dodge has been pumping out these past years. Selling off the sub-brand is the only way to save it (provided this “secret” buyer isn’t in fantasyland, solely created to give this a publicity bump).
And Robstar – the ACR just bested the ZR1’s Nurburgring time. I’d like to think the performance is right there (for a price).
Ford should buy the brand. With GM about to relaunch the Mustang’s arch-nemesis the Camaro, and the GT out of production, Ford needs an answer to the Corvette. With some re-engineering the Viper (maybe just rename it the Cobra to make it fit better) could compete on price and performance with the Corvette and be a big seller.
At this point, Chrysler is selling about 80 Vipers per month– which is probably more than a low volume hand-assembler could handle in production.
If production drops and the waiting list gets a little longer, that could be a good thing for maintaining exclusiveness of the car… unless one is worried about potential customers running off to buy a Vette or something else instead.
But presumably the amount of interest would drop when you could no longer get a car with a dealership warranty
Why couldn’t the cars still be sold through Dodge dealerships with a Chrysler warranty? it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing was done.
NulloModo:
That’s deranged. I kinda like it.
NulloModo:
A Ford-branded Viper makes no sense, but then again, Roush is selling perfornamce parts for the Corvette, so who am I to pass judgement like that?
Personally, I’m rooting for Saleen to strike and get the Viper. Yeah, they’re known for tuning the hell out of Mustangs, but they did build the Bumblebee Camaro for the Transformers film, so it’s not like they’re totally loyal. Besides, the Raptor is a while off, isn’t it?
Ah the viper, I’ve always had a certain favoritism for the car. It wasn’t for any of the performance numbers, or anything practical like that. The car was just so good looking compared to anything else I had seen
That being said I just hope Chrysler doesn’t sell it to someone who’ll screw up the car. I actually would like whoever buys it to go back to a design like the 2nd gen viper (my personal favorite).
Chrysler would still be the manufacturer of the V10, I assume.
Didn’t Ford get almost $1 billion for Aston Martin? Dodge sells not only more cars than AM, but there’s also a bigger opportunity for capitalization within the Viper brand. If Bentley can sell fifteen thousand Continentals a year, then there’s a market for more Vipers. Imagine a Porsche Boxster contender…
Rich Russian Anyone?
It could be similar to how a series of private investors managed to revive Avanti several times after Studebaker bit the dust. It gave Avanti a run of an additional 30 years or so, not counting the Camaro/Firebird-based Avantis, before Avanti finally died.
Maybe Shelby ?.
Maybe it’s Lutz buying back his baby. Pontiac Viper?
GM always could buy and kill the Viper so the Corvette would be the uncontested American Performance Car, but I think they’d be more likely to try and run with it if they bought it.
@chanman: GM doesn’t have cash to throw away on another niche vehicle like that…. which means that it’s entirely possible!
Thank God Cerberus isn’t dismantling Chrysler and selling it piece by piece the way so many had feared…oh wait. It is.
Woohoo for private equity. Buhbye Chrysler.
Thank God cerberus is dismantling Chrysler.
Where are the synergies between making and marketing a low volume exotic like the Viper and building Minivans, SUVs and Trucks? I hope someone with cash to invest buys Viper and builds it into a Ferrari or Porsche competitor.