1992 Dodge Viper RT/10 Test: God's Own Dustbuster

We become the first on earth to measure the speed of the Viper's strike. View PhotosRick Casemore|Car and DriverFrom the March 1992 issue of Car and Driver. The windows don't roll up. Matter of fact, there are no windows. Or outside door handles. Not much protection against the weather, either—the "top" is simply a section of canvas that stretches from the windshield header to the "sport bar." There is no hard top. But what there is in this Dodge Viper RT/10 is a ten-cylinder, 488-cubic-inch powerplant producing 400 horsepower and a Car and Driver-measured 13.2-second quarter-mile time that makes it quicker than the altogether outrageous Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1. And with the wind ripping new configurations in your eyebrows and the engine in full honk, you're not going to give one whit about absent windows or door handles. Because this Viper is one of the most exciting rides since Ben Hur discovered the chariot. That's the whole point of the Viper. It's intended to go fast, stop hard, hang onto corners, and give everyone in sight—driver, passenger, and bystanders—a thrill that will make their day. See all results for used 1992 Dodge Viper for sale near 400072 The Viper's massive ten-cylinder engine is mated to a six-speed manual transmission. An arresting plastic body hides a stout, steel-tube frame. There's also an unequal-length control-arm suspension, giant disc brakes, and wider-than-wide tires and wheels. And the entire exotic package weighs in at 3450 pounds, ready to rumble. For about $55,000, you too can hop inside. Getting in begins with an awkward reach inside and a tug of the too-conventional Chrysler-style door handle, and the door opens. (An aside: your government says car doors need locks and would not grant the Viper an exemption, creating the curious circumstance of inside door locks that are readily accessible from the outside.) Lowering yourself into the cockpit is easier than dropping into a Corvette—which has taller rocker structures—but you must heed the label warning of doorsill heat from the enclosed side exhausts. Once settled in the supportive, leatherfaced bucket seat, the view that greets you is at once unusual (white-faced instruments in an unappealing gray panel material that looks and feels like double-aught sandpaper) and welcoming (familiar, straightforward controls and switches). See all results for used 1992 Dodge Viper for sale near 400072 At first, you think the clutch feels oddly unyielding, but that's the brake; the pedals are offset to the left because of that great honking front-mounted motor squeezing its way into the passenger compartment. Not even the most jaded long-time owner will ever reach for the Viper's ignition switch without a palpable twinge of excitement. Lighting off ten 799-cc cylinders will always arouse the spirit. The sound that follows, unfortunately, doesn't. Good mechanical busyness and a hungry-mouth intake roar comes from the front, but the separate, five-cylinder, side-outlet exhaust plumbing gave the engineers fits. They couldn't tune in a melodious note and meet the federal 80-dBA noise limit. So the Viper sounds oddly like a UPS truck up to 3000 rpm, then it just roars like God's own Dustbuster. Pulling out into city traffic for the first time is less intimidating than it might be in a car like this. Toe clutch action is moderately heavy but smooth in takeup, the shift lever moves with unexpected ease, and—noise aside—the engine doesn't seem to care if it's turning 1200 or 5000 rpm. It always offers great thrust and never bucks or spits or overheats. The steering effort is light, and the brake pedal has absolutely no lost motion. In short, despite its Hulk Hogan presence, the Viper is a pussycat to drive. Its standard six-speaker stereo even works acceptably, with just a bit of musical detail lost to three-digit wind speeds. One feature we miss is a good left-foot dead pedal. We found the Viper oddly difficult to see out of—a strange complaint in an open car. The windshield frame is quite thick, close by the driver's eyes, and low on top. We were continually ducking down to spot road signs and traffic lights, and finally just slid down and forward in the seat to lower our vantage point. The sport bar behind the headrests also cut off the top of the inside mirror's view. The Viper tolerates the urban crush, but it lives and breathes on open roads. Be they fast or slow, it pounds along happily. It does prefer smooth surfaces, since its radically wide tires display the usual big-meat tendency to juke about trying to follow contours and ripples in the pavement. At elevated speeds and cornering loads, this action can be startling; a sharp bump in the middle of a high-g turn is bad enough if it causes momentary unweighting of the tires, but in the Viper that event can be accompanied by a sharp lateral feint. Even traveling straight, a big, suspension-pumping undulation in the road can threaten to change heading. T

1992 Dodge Viper RT/10 Test: God's Own Dustbuster

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