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I thought Fiat announced the other day they were killing the Dodge car brand altogether, just Dodge trucks are going to be continued.
 
I wonder if they will be making cappachino makers on that line now? All the local plants here are worried if they will be staying open in the future.
 
If Chrysler don't get it together they may not be around by 2012. I hope the Viper lives on. If Chrysler and the Viper make it, it will be very interesting to see what influence Ferarri has on the 2012 Viper if any. Hopefully it will remain a reliable care without the maintenance problems of owning a Ferarri.
 
Fiat should be an asset to them as it allows them a foot hold here as a good small car. They are the people's car in Italy. I used to see them everywhere. Mopar won't be the car it used to be but they have to roll with the punches being down 30% with even Ford and Gm only being down a few percent.
 
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The good news is.....if gas is still available......your Viper in good condition will eventually be worth a lot, relatively speaking. It's iconic. So unfortunate that a engineering-innovation company as great as Chrysler once was is just a shell of it's former self. Not sure if Fiat will make a difference or now. They have to be around long enough for the pipeline to get filled with new cars. And I'm not fully onboard with Fiat's 500 being the small car answer, either. Specs say it's like a foot shorter than the Mini Cooper????. Plus, I'm not sure what the American public wants in the Viper segment. Do they want pure muscle w/tons-o-V10 horsepower/torque or the watch machinery of a Ferrari power plant? Even at it's current price point, a Viper is way below anything Ferrari sells a reasonable number of.

Wish that Dodge/Chrysler (and Plymouth) were still around...........and for that matter, the gold "old days" of Pontiac & Olds. Some nice cars from them in the way past...........it's just those brands eventually had no identity and it wasn't financially viable to keep them. Watch - Mercury might be next. Dodge and the Viper still do.......hope they make a worthy successor!!

See ya.
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Its unfortunate, ask Surfer, but we have spoken about the Viper being on the chopping block since little after its introduction. While a design hit, and a true sportscar, it doesnt move product in the manner needed for mass producers. Also it effects their CAFE standards tremendously with all the other trucks and big motored Mopars and with the Obama administration raising them recently likely became the cut.

I dont see the same car selling with a quadruple turbocharged 6 cylinder ... so best it goes while being the what was originally intended from its developers versus a water down beancounters version.
 
Just wish I was in a position to buy one of the last 500! At least this one is paid for. :) I keep it in perfect shape but, someday it will be time to move on.......
 
Yea, I know it's been discussed as on the way out for a long time. It doesn't help Chryslers CFE, but actually, based on avg. corporate fuel economy & the small numbers of Vipers sold, it doesn't impact it that much. Don't know if it was ever profitable, per the normal hurdle rates for IRR, but it was a marketing smash. Dodge (Chrysler) needs (needed) a=something to showcase. It's so unfortunate that have lost such engineering leadership over the years. Amazing to me.......Now, they have such an old product line, not much cash to work with and consumers running away from them.

Their bread and butter is on the ropes. They've lost leadership in minivans and the public has gravitated away. Dodge pick-ups are way down and the products that have any interest are all "big.......as in big displacement. That's what sinks their CAFE.

Don't know what their 'image" is going to turn out to be after all of this, if they are still alive. Robert Eaton sunk them with that deal w/M-B. He made out like a bandit......and the company didn't. M-B didn't help.......not such a bad theorectical marriage of "technology innovators", but a product & financial disaster. Look how much they lost when they sold Chrysler to Cerberus. Then, run by a guy who ran Home Depot. Yea, that made a lot of sense. Being in BIG business.........no matter how good a financial leader you are, you have to know the business, customers & be a leader. Chrysler is such a different public face than a home store.

Bad choice..............and now, Fiat gets a chance to run it. Well, well see. Just realize that Fiat hasn't sold anything in the US for years, regardless of their worldwide markets. There's a reason for that........but, maybe the marriage will be better this time around.

Let's hope that there's no twin-turbo, "old '84 Dodge Daytona-esque" car that shows up as a Viper.

See ya.
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killrwheels@autogeek said:
Its unfortunate, ask Surfer, but we have spoken about the Viper being on the chopping block since little after its introduction. While a design hit, and a true sportscar, it doesnt move product in the manner needed for mass producers. Also it effects their CAFE standards tremendously with all the other trucks and big motored Mopars and with the Obama administration raising them recently likely became the cut.

I dont see the same car selling with a quadruple turbocharged 6 cylinder ... so best it goes while being the what was originally intended from its developers versus a water down beancounters version.
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Its going to be tough times for more cars like this with the economy down.
 
Gary Sword said:
If Chrysler don't get it together they may not be around by 2012. I hope the Viper lives on. If Chrysler and the Viper make it, it will be very interesting to see what influence Ferarri has on the 2012 Viper if any. Hopefully it will remain a reliable care without the maintenance problems of owning a Ferarri.
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Hey Gary... how is the maintenance on the Lambo?
 
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LincolnZephyr2006 said:
Hey Gary... how is the maintaince on the Lambo?
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The Lambo dealers in Florida really suck and can't fix anything right the first time. It's a beautiful car but a hassle to own. I've been thinking about selling it. I have had 2 vipers with no problems at all with them. This is my current one. I guess it's going to be a classic.
:props:
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I sold the one with stripes below to a collector in Japan for more than I paid for it:
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Dodge died due to issues with quality of build and reliability of product. They are taking a bigger hit then ford and chevy because their daily driver line up has been a snooze button in the car industry and if do a simple test of counting the cars left on the side of the road as I did one summer on road trips... I got 3 ford : 3 chevy : 9 Mopar ...

On top of this I watched a 1st gen caravan end up with broken motor mounts, a 2nd gen caravan end up with broken motor mounts (both my mothers... an old lady.... shes not hot dogging the car)... a jeep Cherokee with broken motor mounts... a dodge durango backfired on my and caught on fire with 80K miles... and an old dodge 600turbo... it went through 2 or 3 turbos before my father left it at the garage for them to deal with. I just stay away from Mopar at this point :)

Now my experience with chevy is limited... usually they suffered cosmetic issues over reliability ones... and fords did very well... just crappy O-rings in AC system led them to never having reliable AC later in life.

Oddly enough 80% of my family are driving toyotas and hondas now... and we all started out buying american.
 
Chrysler quality fell through the floor............and their product portfolio, as Da Fats says really is staid in the key, middle American car market. It is hard to believe that the car models got soooooooo bad. They used to be much more exciting!

Ford and GM are far ahead in terms of quality management & product lines. Latest quality surveys show some US brands at the top of the heap.....so, it's entirely possible for them to do. Buick has been near/at the top of JD Power (and other industry metric) ratings for quite a while, even before some of the brand new products. Ford/Lincoln are climbing pretty fast, as well. GM lags, I think overall in catching up across all thei product brands, but I suspect the new models/platforms they will use across these brands will help a lot.

But, the Penta Star boys are suckin' canal water right now. even what they produce and sell that is marginally market attractive isn't very good and they are in the lower third of quality ratings.

A real shame that the Dodge muscle icon is so tarnished and such a cool, show-market car like the Viper will pay the price as well.

The above posters Viper is very,very cool..................LOVE the red coupe!! Also, like the idea that he sold his used car to a foreign buyer for more than he paid new! That sounds like positive appreciation..........I like that in automobile!! :) Need to find some more cars with the attribute!!! Hang on to that Red Viper!!

Of course, that's just my opinion.................I could be wrong! :)


Da Fats said:
Dodge died due to issues with quality of build and reliability of product. They are taking a bigger hit then ford and chevy because their daily driver line up has been a snooze button in the car industry and if do a simple test of counting the cars left on the side of the road as I did one summer on road trips... I got 3 ford : 3 chevy : 9 Mopar ...

On top of this I watched a 1st gen caravan end up with broken motor mounts, a 2nd gen caravan end up with broken motor mounts (both my mothers... an old lady.... shes not hot dogging the car)... a jeep Cherokee with broken motor mounts... a dodge durango backfired on my and caught on fire with 80K miles... and an old dodge 600turbo... it went through 2 or 3 turbos before my father left it at the garage for them to deal with. I just stay away from Mopar at this point :)

Now my experience with chevy is limited... usually they suffered cosmetic issues over reliability ones... and fords did very well... just crappy O-rings in AC system led them to never having reliable AC later in life.

Oddly enough 80% of my family are driving toyotas and hondas now... and we all started out buying american.
Click to expand...
 
tenorplayer23 said:
The above posters Viper is very,very cool..................LOVE the red coupe!! Also, like the idea that he sold his used car to a foreign buyer for more than he paid new! That sounds like positive appreciation..........I like that in automobile!! :) Need to find some more cars with the attribute!!! Hang on to that Red Viper!!

Of course, that's just my opinion.................I could be wrong! :)
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The 2002 Gen II Viper GTS with Silver stripes was the only car I ever sold at a profit in my life. I purchased the car new in 2003 at a really great price after the 2003 Gen III models were out. When I sold the car I didn't even have it for sale. A friend of mine who deals in exotic cars approched me to sell the car to the collector in Japan. The guy made me an offer I couldn't refuse. The car was in perfect as new conditon when I sold it. I ended up buying the 2002 Gen Viper GTS ACR from the original owner for $18,500 less then I sold other one for. Also the MSRP on the ACR was about $10,000 more than the car I sold. The ACR wasn't in perfect condition but it's almost perfect and it had 3,800 more miles on it.
 
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMmaPr7L4dU&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - motorguru.com - Dodge Viper Factory Tour (host: Justin Bell)[/video]
 
Nice video Newport Viper! I had seen it a while back. I got to tour the Viper plant back in 1995 when I still lived in Michigan and worked for a company that did a lot of work for the auto industry including work at the Viper plant. I wanted a Viper ever since I saw the prototype at the Detroit Auto Show. I think that was in 1989. I couldn't afford one when they first came out in 1992. They only made 285 Vipers that year and they were very hard to get. Even if you had the money you had to get on a waiting list. I didn't end up getting my1st Viper until years latter.
 
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