This week's races and reviewing is done remotely entirely from my... residence, in Japan. Not that the COTW committee has gotten cold feet all of a sudden from the "big 19"; we've always had to undergo the most stringent of tests and take every precaution - rather, it's just that this week's cars were both virtual, a blessing to the unbeknownst masses of reality.
My "residence" in Japan is little more than a car storage facility, a sim rig dumped onto the driveway from the utter lack of space, and the spiteful bare minimum to sustain human life. It has a claustrophobic bathroom, barely a step up from the portable units seen in funerals and the like. It has a table and two chairs for dining and paperwork. What else do you need? A kitchen? The only thing I can cook are brakes and tyres. And I doubt those taste good even when done medium rare.
With the review out of the way, I'm free to do what I originally flew back to Japan for: my Viper's servicing is due.
Not that I like hiring people I don't personally know well to drive my babies, but in the Viper's case, I literally cannot let anyone else drive it. It is a dangerous, unapologetic, unhesitating monster of a murderer that makes even racing drivers of experience shudder at the thought of driving, and there is no waiver that I could write that would absolve me as an employer of responsibilities should, or when, a poor chap cannonballs this thing sideways into ten other cars at brisk walking speeds.
My car is a 2nd gen, 2002 GTS, the last of its kind. I don't have many American cars in my collection, so when I have to meet with American VIPs for social events I can't squirm my way out of, this car is the one I drive to meet them. Thankfully however, now that I'm no longer an active racing driver (...and most likely because of the "big 19"), these social visits have become just about nonexistent. The Viper always, ALWAYS, gets an enthusiastic reaction from these guests, petrolhead or not. With American cars, you have the Ford guys or the GM guys. But everybody can appreciate a Viper, if not for the car's majesty, then for the idiocy of anyone who would own one. I've always loved this thing, despite how it's always wanted to kill me. It's why I own it, in spite of it trying to kill me if I as much looked at it funny.
Removing its cloth cover, I am awestruck anew yet again by the timeless, muscular, cartoon character face and proportions of the Viper, dominated beautifully by larger-than-stock twin white stripes striking through the centre of its body, bathed in as close an approximation of GTS Blue as I can manage. In my mind, there is no other Viper as iconic as this one, in this colour combination. In fact, if you own a Viper without twin stripes, what are you even doing? Do you even own a Viper? It is the one every kid who played Gran Turismo drove, and it is the one every kid crashed in said Gran Turismo when they fully upgraded it into an undriveable mess. But god damn, you take one look at this beauty and tell me the pain isn't worth it. I don't know what or why, but something about this generation of Vipers just looks "right" to me, that later models have lost and failed to recapture. This is the exact, and perhaps only shape that comes to my mind when someone mentions the word, "Viper" to me. Something about it just... works. I can't explain it.
Reconnecting the batteries of the car even I don't drive much, the Viper roared to life for the first time in a good while. Gosh, when was the last time I drove this? Certainly not in a race. It might even be as far back as the last time I had to service this thing. Slipping into its spartan, spitefully barebones interior, I can already start to feel the heat of the exhaust pipes emanating from underneath the door sills. Once in, you're greeted by a steering wheel, gauges, three pedals, a stick, a handbrake, two seats, and seatbelts. What else do you need, a kitchen? It cooks me better than my FD RX-7 does, anyway. This thing IS an oven on wheels. I may have insinuated earlier that this thing could be lethal at brisk walking pace. But, really? This thing could kill you at a standstill without even resorting to carbon monoxide.
Out of two virtual beaters, and into a one that's too real. Ahh yes.
Almost as if to answer a prayer I never uttered, the garage door opened up to reveal a slight drizzle outside. I could laugh. I could cry. I could regret owning a Viper, but at this point, the Viper feels like part of my life, part of a portfolio I show my friends, again and again. "This is what I'm about. This is what has led me to where I am today. This is what shaped me. This is what I like." And, really, isn't that what sports, super, and hypercars are about? If performance cars are cartoon characters, designed to make you smile, designed to be fun, designed to be unique, then there is a very strong argument to be made for the Viper being the strongest, most compelling cartoon character. It's so in-your-face that it's almost impossible to be indifferent towards it; you either love it for all that it stood for, or you hate it for its ridiculously long list of flaws, many of which instant deal breakers for anyone with a shred of common sense in them. I'm lucky enough to love this thing, though perhaps to a fault, as my left leg can already attest to.
This generation of Vipers, and even the one after, came with no traction control or ABS. Stability control? I'm not sure the Viper understands either of those two words on their own, let alone put together. The suspension setup on this car feel like driving on clouds; weight transfer happens... sometimes... maybe? There is no feedback whatsoever from the wheels of the car. Steering feel is as soggy as the weather today. You turn the wheel, and the car turns when it wants to turn. You can't force it to do anything, especially turning and braking, as it will absolutely lash out and bite your head off if you think you have any say or power in this relationship. The Americans have a saying: "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure." Imagine how much curing is required when it takes so much due care just in prevention in the Viper. You do NOT want to provoke this thing. Even when you think you're being civil with it, sometimes its limits will come to you instead of you approaching the limits. You can politely ask the car to do something, it thinks for a bit, and then replies with "nah brah, not in the mood", and suddenly you find yourself in some truly hairy scenarios. To drive this thing fast feels as precarious and precise an endeavour as dancing on a mattress while wearing stilettos. Don't ask me where I got that analogy from. You aren't masterfully utilising every millimetre of the track and shaving hundreds of a second off your lap times in this car like you perhaps would a lightweight Japanese pocket rocket of its era; instead, you take roughly the racing line and let the power do the rest for you.
Yes, every time I put my foot down in a Viper, I can't help but to smile. 450HP isn't a lot by today's standards, but back when every Japanese manufacturer were arguing about who had the best 276 horses, the Viper's 450 made men in bowties soil themselves in unabridged horror. And trust me when I say that these 450 horses are a very, very different breed from those of the Japanese. It almost doesn't matter when you shift this thing: there is torque EVERYWHERE. It's genuinely a car where I suddenly realise I'm in the wrong gear coming out of a bend, but by the time my hand is on the shifter, I'm already in the right gear. This engine pulls without a damn care in the world. Its plateaus of torque could make modern EVs look over their shoulders in a cold, acidic sweat. Yet, the car never ever felt like it was screaming, or even trying. It always sounds laid back and lazy, only sounding mildly annoyed at the last 500 or so rpm.
One would think that driving a 450HP, FR brute of an animal with no aids would be difficult because of its insane power, but really, that is not at all the case. Perhaps it's because I've been spoiled silly by the supercars of today with excess of 600HP, but I find the Viper's power to be very well contained and managed, so much so that, as long as you aren't actively asking for trouble and exercise due sensibility, even trying to drive this thing fast won't induce power oversteer. This I find is thanks to its gargantuan 335 section rear tyres, along with suspension so soft that there is always weight over the rear tyres by the time your steering wheel is reasonably straight out of a corner. It only starts to hint at power oversteer when fuel loads are low, and the rear end of the car lightens up.
That said, because of how soft the suspension is, especially at the rear, on power, the Viper's turning radius increase rivals that of some modern, 300HP FF hot hatches. It's a car you really need to straighten out before giving it a boot full. I find it difficult to precisely place the car as well, not just because of the aforementioned lack of feedback and soft suspension, but also because the driving position is freaking weird in this car. You're set so far to the left of the car, the driver side door almost feels paper thin, and the right extremes of the car feel like they're in another zip code entirely. You're also sat farther back in the car, thanks to the long hood having to swallow a hulking V10 longitudinally. I almost want to say there's some cant angle in the seating as well, but at this point, I might just be making excuses.
Gingerly, this 450BHP, 8.0L Lamborghini sourced V10 car tiptoed over to Mooneyes in Yokohama, mostly following much more sensible drivers in the centre lane, tactically avoiding cooking myself by utilising the Viper's sky high overdrive 6th gear, which causes the engine to damn near stall at 1,250rpm, doing Japan's highway speed limit of 100km/h. Cars do signal and give way, seeing this menacing shape in their rear view mirrors, but I'm going as fast as my balls and left thigh allow, dear Camry-san.
Support for American cars are scarce in Japan, but that is not to say it's nonexistent. While Mooneyes specialises in Hot Rod restoration and the like, they've graciously made an exception for this idiot and his Viper, and has been my go-to since importing the Viper into Japan a number of years ago. We've made special orders for the Viper's very oddly sized 275/35ZR18 tyres up front, and 335/30ZR18 in the rear from Michelin, and also for authentic American cuisine at their restaurant, which I had hoped to give up on when moving to Japan, to no avail. But other than that? Everything about maintenance is rather routine and normal.
Taking Route 8 back onto the... Wangan (there, I said the magic word, does my thing get more views now?), the skies have cleared up somewhat, and the roads were starting to dry quickly in the summer heat of Japan. As usual, I'm taking it easy in the Viper, especially on brand new rubber. An R34 GT-R approaches the rear bumper of my car and gives me two quick flashes of the headlights, a sign of a challenge. I put my hazards on to decline. I know what it looks like, but the Viper really isn't that kind of car. It's something you have to accept and deal with on a regular basis as an owner of a Viper.
After a few more minutes of pestering me, the GT-R pulls out and overtakes me. The speed and stability of these things will never stop being amazing to me. But, just as I thought that, a howl so piercing and loud seemingly tore the air apart, and a car appeared with such blinding speed in my mirrors I saw it almost only as soon as I heard it.
Not that I really got a good look at it, but the size and shape of it resembled that of a purpose built supercar; it was low, it was long, and by god was it loud. Its brake discs were glowing almost as brightly as the tail lights themselves, as it slowed down just in time to avoid nailing the rapidly accelerating GT-R that just pulled out from behind me, and with the same agility and ease, made an unapologetic go-around the GT-R, perhaps even before the poor chap in the R34 knew what the heck just happened to him.
The shape, size and colour, along with the noise... naaaah. But then I saw those boring tail lights... there's no mistaking it. But there is quite literally no way... Man, I've had a long day. I'm just going to go home after grabbing some "groceries". I'm starting to hallucinate. Must be the heat in the cabin.
I stopped over at the famous enthusiast gathering spot of Tatsumi PA, though with no more intention than to just grab instant noodles from the 7-Eleven nearby for more late night review writing and drive home. I mean, sure, the's another conbini* right by my place, but it's like a five minute walk!
*conbini: short for "conbiniansu sutoaa", or convenience store.
Perhaps due to the "big 19", it's much less crowded- ah, no, there's the crowd. They've formed in such a dense pack that I could not even steal a peek at what was causing such a commotion.
Even an American icon packing a Lamborghini V10 could not rouse a single eyelid in Tatsumi that day. Not that I was there for any attention, but I do have to admit it stung a little. Leaving the conbini saddled with bags of plasticky noodles, I returned to find that not only had the ruckus not died down, but it had grown almost twofold, scores of people now trying to climb over each other to take photos of the eye of the storm. Is there some sort of event happening today? I don't keep up with car culture much; I've got my own hands full.
Sticking my key into the door of the Viper to get in, I was approached by a foreign looking man, who had been sitting on a bench prior. I stopped the unlocking process, looking at the man with apprehension. I'm not sure what to expect at all. Caucasian men are a rare sight in Japan, and it's even more unsettling when you can't read facial expressions due to the masks we're all wearing.
"Ano... nani ka...", I begin.
"Ah, sumimasen, no speak.... nihongo", the man goes, forming a cross with both his forearms.
"Oh, er...", I stutter. I'm not very good at speaking in person.
"English, yes?", he offers, with a distinct accent that's quite hard to place, yet still somewhat familiar.
"English, yes, yes...", I continue to fumble over a wide open path of communication.
"Your car is very nice!", he goes.
"T-thank you..."
As with most times however, talking about my cars was a great way to ease myself into a conversation. It didn't take long for us to chat up a storm about the Viper, and I had seemingly forgotten how to stutter. Before I knew it, we had even shared a few personal stories, like how I used to be a racing driver, and quit because of how ludicrously dangerous the sport had become, and how lax and ridiculous the officiating has become. He had thought I quit because of the rumours and scandals of the higher ups fixing races, but that wasn't a topic I was very keen to discuss. I like to steer clear of drama in my life and just do my own thing.
"Can I drive it?", he suddenly asks.
"Wh-NO!", I reel back. Is this guy insane?!
"I'll let you drive my car in exchange."
"Oh, pfft, no. End of story."
"Are you sure? My car does the Nordschleife 26 seconds faster than yours", he cheekily teases.
It was at that point, with the perfect pronunciation of "Nordschleife" that I pinpointed the accent: German. No wonder it sounded so distantly familiar. I heard it way back when negotiating for my own ratios on the Cayman GT4. Let's just say I'm glad I've never had to hear it again since.
"Yeah, pshh. Irrelevant. Like anyone's taken this car to the 'Ring before. Please, don't-"
"7:35."
"What?"
"This car does the Nordschleife in 7 minutes 35 seconds."
"Bullsheet."
"Are you sure you don't want a drive in my car? It does a low 7 around the 'Ring."
I'm bad at excusing myself and putting my foot down in conversations, so instead of simply ignoring the madman and driving off, I said, "show me".
"Sure thing", he assuredly sings. He turns to lead the way as I extract the key from the door of my Viper. I really need to learn how to say no. I just want to be at home right now. We walked straight towards the droves of people, and I began to feel uncomfortable all over again. I straight up got pangs in my stomach when he made attempts to cut into the crowd of people, and I, clueless to everything, had to follow suit. Social distance my butt cheeks.
Once through, my eyes damn near popped out of my head, and I could only whisper under my breath:
Ho.
Lee.
SHEET.
In the eye of the storm sat, of all things, a McLaren F1. In the same shade of orange I saw damn near rear end a GT-R from earlier.
"You sure you don't want a go?", he, suddenly with the upper hand in the argument, almost gloats as he questions me.
Feeling slighted and immediately on the defensive, I call him on his bluff. "Start it."
With a nonchalant turn of his body, he presses on the remote that was in his hands the whole time, and sure enough, the F1 responded, flashing its hazards twice to signal its unlock. I might've gasped audibly when the F1 actually responded, but it was hard to tell in the sea of what felt like a hundred other "ooh"s and "aah"s.
Such is the response this car evokes from everyone present, that even unlocking its doors made you a superstar.
Kneeling on the right passenger footwell, he sticks the key into the ignition, and sure enough, the F1 roared to life. And at this point, I began to feel my knees weaken. Am I... really being offered a chance to drive a McLaren F1? It's... not a replica, is it? No one can be that talented, can they?! I refuse to believe that!
"Well, how about it?", he asks, yet again.
There are a few certainties in life. Death and taxes, for example. Certain things you don't do, as well. You don't spit in the wind, you don't tug at Superman's cape, and you sure as hell don't turn down an opportunity to drive a McLaren freaking F1.
"No no, you don't understand...", I begin to back off, slapped in the face by legitimacy and motoring royalty that I hadn't even in my wildest dreams dared envision. "My car's dangerous man, it doesn't have ABS-"
"Neither does this."
"Are you SURE you can handle a Viper, man?"
"I can handle an F1."
"No no, you don't understand. My car is flipping terrible to drive!"
"I've driven them before."
"But like... you're trusting me with an F1?"
"You said you used to be a racing driver, no?"
"That's not..."
"Please man. I really love Vipers. I miss mine."
In a deeply bewildered daze, egged on by empathy of losing a beloved car, I said, "A-alright...", and I handed him the key. It's... somewhat more assuring to know that he's had experience with Vipers. Yet, there are twenty million other things I ought to be concerning myself with, like insurance, speed cameras...
"Give 'er a good run, tell me what you think after!", the man tells me.
"Yeah man, no. I don't want to get you into trouble."
"Trouble? Oh, don't worry about the cops, man."
"What?"
"It'd be fine. They'll leave you alone."
The frick?
He left after agreeing to meet back here after an hour. With the gear lever on the right, I opt to get in from the left side instead. Crawling into the unique centre seating position of the F1 is an inelegant process, but I'll gladly suffer any indignity at this moment. It's been so long since I last felt like a kid in a toy store. Reaching for the handle of the A pillar hinged door, the cockpit of the F1 seals shut, almost like a jet fighter. As I engage first on the stick shift to my right and creep away from a standstill, the crowd of onlookers clear a path of the bare minimum gap and distance, still clamouring for more photos of the car, all the way until I made it out of the parking area in what felt like twenty minutes of driving.
It didn't take very long for me to work myself up to and feel for the limits for the F1. In fact, it was so easy to find a rhythm and groove with the car, it truly did feel like it fit like a glove. What immediately shocked me is how easy and accessible everything in the F1 is. Power is progressive, and never explosive and unmanageable, thanks in part to its tall as mountains gearing helping mask the violence, but never the surge. It is very usable power that is never intimidating; a sharp contrast to the performance oriented and record claiming hypercars of today. Weighing in at a scant 1,140kg (2,500lbs) kerb, the F1 also stops appreciably well as well, perhaps even better than most hypercars of today. Weight transfer is shockingly intuitive and almost immediate, even in mid corner. In fact, initial impressions driving this thing semi hard was that, it was super easy and accessible! So much so in fact, the first comparison that came to my mind was my NSX-R at home. Both cars are so easy to drive fast, with most of their performance usable and accessible, while being forgiving, to boot.
Yes, I find that the F1 is set up with forgiveness in mind. To that end, there's a degree of softness to it not AT ALL found in record claiming, performance oriented hypercars of today. This forgiving softness in the suspension however, does mean that you need to be smoother and slower with your inputs, especially the pedals. You have to ease the weight over the front tyres first before fully asking for the brakes when the car is off neutral, and you have to be gentle on shifts in sweeping corners, lest the F1 jerks and lurches around a racing line you're trying to hold.
But at no point did the F1 threaten to chew me up and spit me off. It was a very relaxing, calm, and composed drive, very much like a 634PS NSX. In fact, it's... better, than my NSX-R at home with only 280PS. THAT still threatens me from time to time. This... doesn't.
Yes, the F1 lacks ABS too, like my Viper. However, the lack of ABS is trivialised as much as possible in the F1. Of course, you can still get in trouble with it, but as long as you practice due common sense, the F1 happily obliges your every input. As long as you don't, say, attempt to brake and turn at the same time too too much, and as long as you don't ask too much braking of the car as elevation changes, the lack of ABS is barely noticeable in the car. The front tyres will start to squeak maybe a little even on full braking, but the car maintains its composure and line, all the way until you hit 2nd or 1st gear braking zones, where the front tyres will want to lock up. Yet, this I daresay is the easiest car to drive without ABS I've ever driven, by a shockingly wide margin. This is a car that isn't reliant on ABS to be driveable. There is always clear feedback and communication as to what each tyre is doing and experiencing, be it via audio cues from the tyres themselves, or steering feel. Even when the tyres do start to slip under braking, they are always just a small, minuscule adjustment of the brake pedal away from finding grip again. The friction circle on this thing is almost tangible in your hands, with the steering wheel slowly and proportionately letting you turn for the same steering force you're inputting, the more you let off on the brakes, while keeping the tyres screaming at the edge of adhesion.
So intuitive, easy, and accessible is the handling of this car with such shocking capabilities, with such fine attention to detail in the small nuances of handling, it blew my every fear and expectation clear out of the water with just a few minutes behind the wheel. Even the driving position, dead centre of the car, one would think takes getting used to. Yet, for a racing driver, it was second nature. The A pillars are barely in your peripheral vision when seated, and with only two haunches out the bonnet that remind me of things perhaps too dirty to mention, visibility was panoramic in the F1. Why don't ALL cars come with this three seat configuration? It doesn't take very long at all for anyone to realise that this car is engineered with the most meticulous of details and driving sensation in mind. Everything, from the suspension, to the aerodynamics, and even its driving position, felt set up just so, never excessive, never extreme, always easy, and ridiculously rewarding for the very basic requirement of treating it with due common sense. It's like getting a chance to flip your favourite actress with just a very basic requirement of just taking a shower to make sure you don't stink... you guys miss Esther editing out these analogies yet?
In fact, after a while, I started to get so comfortable with the car, my mind was starting to drift elsewhere. I began to think of other things in my life as I drove at speeds well in excess of triple the limit. It was that easy and reassuring. This car has a very... personal, feel to it. Driving this car feels as easy and trusting as talking to a good friend, one to one. You could almost see and feel a person in it. This felt like a car designed by a very small, tightly knit group, or even a single person, instead of a committee. It has a very cohesive feel towards a laser focused goal, one that is shockingly civil and pleasant, unlike the hypercars of today that scream performance and boast extremity almost as a rite of passage for legitimacy. Yet, I think they misunderstand. This is a hypercar that held the record for top speed of a production car for TEN YEARS, yet it is easy and calm to drive. You really could tell that, gatekeeping price tag aside, the designer(s) of this car really wanted them to be driven and exploited by drivers of varying skill levels.
I... love that.
I love this.
Give me more...
A while later into the drive, when I'm fully confident and familiar with the F1, I began to feel it asking me, "Push me more! I can handle it!" It felt like Billie Jean asking for your hand to dance. Yet, dare I? Am I the Michael Jackson of racing drivers? Do I dare risk it all?
It hurt all the more that this car felt so personal when I had to turn it down. At the end of the day, the F1 is not my lover; this is someone else's car on public roads, and I think I'm already taking liberties that I will regret in a cell for ten years after. With how composed and at ease the F1 both felt to drive and made me feel as a driver, it was, in all honesty, enjoyable even at about eight tenths that I was driving it at, with reasonable margin for error.
But god I wish I had one. I wish I could bring this out to a track to really feel for the bleeding edge of its limits. I love this. I want this. This car has purged every other hypercar from my mind. I really do struggle to come up with any legitimate criticism toward it. I hear maintenance for these things is a nightmare, and realistically speaking, no one's going to daily one, in spite of how it seemingly wants to be. That's... it, I think.
Yes, there are other cars that put down numbers that has far since surpassed it. Yet, none of them have this sense of cohesion, this ease, this accessibility, the sense of meticulous attention to detail, this natural feeling to it, this purity, this personal feeling, that's nigh impossible to put into words. Other cars may have bits and pieces of what I listed, but never all together. What a package it is, this car.
God damnit, I'm spoiled. I don't know if I'll ever be able to enjoy another road car again. I get that the 90s was a truly magical time for cars. I get that we live in a vastly, vastly different time right now. I understand that performance cars nowadays need to be set unforgivingly stiff and be as shouty as possible to claim the records the McLaren F1 once held, especially when now saddled with ever stringent safety standards. But... but I'm spoiled, nonetheless. I... almost wish I never had this particular cherry of mine popped, especially by a stranger whom I may never see again.
I arrived back at Tatsumi a little late, owing to having a... uhm... bit too much fun in the F1.
Once backed in though, I fumble about in the dark for the door handle of the F1, failing to find it. The man signals to reach downwards... to the side... oh, the door latch is underneath the passenger seat. Whoops.
"How was it?", asks he as the door swings open. I undo the buckle of the seatbelt, disappointed that it let go of me just like that. I had hoped there'd be a belt malfunction and I'd be stuck in the F1 for longer. Can you tell I'm struggling to accept that my time in an F1 was over? I just sat there dazed, unable to speak, unable to move. The man seems used to this kind of thing, and simply waits outside patiently without a word as well.
As soon as the guilt of making the owner stand outside waiting outweighed my reluctance to get out of the F1, I did. "So, how was it?", he asks again, beaming.
I take one look back at the F1 and I could almost cry. I want this. This is so unfair! I put one hand on the open door, and look down at its purposefully slim silhouette. I still can't find the words. Where do I even begin?
"Look... can I tell you later? I'm... kind of... overwhelmed right now."
"No problem man. Here, your keys. And my name card."
"O-oh", I barely respond with. I offer my name card as well. Somehow, this is the most normal thing I've done all day. I retrieve the key and survey my Viper. True enough, there wasn't a single scratch on it.
"So... um... how was the Viper?"
"Man I just LOVE this car! The handling is absolutely amazing! It's like it is throwing itself into the corners without spinning, sliding or even losing any speed. In fact its corner speeds are really, REALLY impressive! The engineers did a fantastic job here! Also it seems to have very nice brakes. For now it is my best driving car. And the looks man! What a sexy looking car. Also the under braking lit up Viper symbol at the back is such a cool detail! One of my favourite cars of all time."
...did we even drive the same car? Or am I just bad?
"We need to do this again, man", he says.
"Am I... of COURSE we should!", like a schoolgirl that just got asked out for prom, I lit up.
"Yeah, I only got 45 minutes out of the Viper."
"Was there some problem?"
"It's out of gas."
"Frick. Of course it is." I JUST filled it up after the servicing, did I not?!
"O-oh, f-f-for sureman", I begin to again stutter and fumble for words in the face of such an opportunity. I glance down at the name card in my hand to finally learn his name: "Alex... P?"
He beams in return. "The relevant people will know."
*********************************************
In a way of thinking, both of these cars are indicative of us as a culture, as enthusiasts. With values of the McLaren F1 now at almost twenty MILLION, it's shocking to think that McLaren struggled to even sell 64 of these things back when they were in production. Neither its looks nor performance I daresay has aged a day, and its innovation has hardly even been imitated since.
It genuinely breaks my heart that the Viper is dead. It upsets me so much that boarders on me taking offence. We as enthusiasts keep saying crap like, "we want proper manuals!", "we want NA engines!", and "we want proper RWD coupés!", yet when manufacturers actually give us what we say we want, we don't buy them, and they go out of production due to lack of profitability, making future proposals that much more difficult. Thinking about it makes me sick.
I get it. I'm lucky enough to own multiple cars, and therefore can afford a Viper that I myself rarely even drive. But I will never sell my Viper. It's a statement. Always has been, always will be. The Viper is a firm middle finger to trends, and it always felt like it was the product of a small team of very passionate people, building the car they want, instead of what the customer trends suggest. And even in spite of being the technological equivalent of beating someone with a stick, the Viper has always shown to be a very capable monster in the right hands. It has improved upon itself substantially through generations while staying true to its roots while constantly improving, something most beloved sports cars cannot lay claim to. Yet, it's a painful realisation that perhaps that is exactly why it went extinct: it stayed true to itself and adamantly refused to evolve and adapt. Yet, I think that's precisely what makes it such a great car, and why I love it so. Just like the F1, the Viper feels like a very pure, intimate, personal, and somewhat selfish car in a way. And I personally find it hard to not lust for, love and respect Vipers for that.
Nowadays though, I appreciate it more for it being a cartoon character, and a beacon of nostalgia moreso than for world beating performance. And maybe I'm in the vast minority in that thinking, but it doesn't take away from my appreciation of the Viper. And I'm very proud to own one.
