… and of Challenger, 300 and all other cars that don’t sell in quantity all over the globe. In couple of years RWD cars will be history. Not good news for enthusiasts, but harsh reality of market place. Realistically, if you want RWD – be ready to pay dearly.

RIP Viper… You will be missed. As far as Avenger and Sebring… they will not be missed.

well I fully understand that Chrysler and it’s respective investors could no longer justify building a limted production, high performance car in these troubled times, I cant help but think this is a sign of things to come. Goverment officals seemed convinced that all americans want is tiny cars that get awesome MPGs. While this is true for a lot of people, its not true for everyone. Lets be honest if Americans want small, underpowered cars, then how come everyone isnt driving one?

With the end of Viper, look for the ACR models to become collector items. Especially the “4th Gen” 2008+ 600hp models.

I’ll take a Snakeskin Green one w/black or silver stripes hardtop.

@ Borat -
The Charger/300/Challenger are not in the same situation, at all, that the Viper is in. The Viper is a low volume, labor intensive (hand built) car, while the previous 3 mentioned are all built on assembly lines. Viper wasn’t being cut just because it’s a sports car. And this is now the end of RWD. Domestic automakers are trying to create a solid RWD platform, such as GM has done with their Zeta platform. Every luxury and sports car is RWD (though some, AWD). Not one point you made is true.

Borat, the 300/Charger are not going to disappear or go FWD anytime soon, neither is the Challenger or the Mustang or the Camaro or Corvette or the CTS and rumor has it the 200C will be RWD, the G8 will turn into the Commodore and as long as there are still cars for hire Ford will have some version of the Panther platform lurking our streets. I know what your saying but since the ratio of domestic FWD to RWD cars has remained roughly status quo for about the last two decades I think your prognostication of their imminent demise is a bit premature.

Oh, about the Viper, if it’s true that sucks.

Unfortunate, I’m still hopefull. Maybe someone will buy the brand and develope a new generation. Maybe Hennesy will buy the tooling and build them themselves, like Caterham does with the 7.

If demand returns in better times, Viper will be back. Even though I’m a Mustang guy, I was nervous in the same way years back when they announced the Camaro was getting the kabosh. Low and behold, the market brought it back. I know the Viper has a more complex production, but they could bring this back in better times.

S when this bankruptcy is all said and done, Chrysler will have like 5 plants on US soil? Plus Fiat will do most of the design work. The car company formerly known as Chrysler.

I wish I had money and a huge garage. I’d be buying up all of these I could, as well as GT500’s, ZR-1’s, SRT-8’s and G8 GXP’s and whatever else I could find with a big V-8 or 10. You all know this is going to get worse on the fight against gas guzzlers before it gets better.

Lads, you can argue with me till we all turn blue in face, but RWD is less fuel efficient and more expensive platform to build, maintain, update then FWD and therefore will disappear once companies will start to adhere to the bottom line. It is matter of $$ & cents, not invigorating driving experience. I can see ‘Tang lumbering on (maybe), but not GM & Chrysler models. The only saving grace for those two bankrupts would be continuous subsidies from Uncle Sam, then the cost of production is irrelevant.

JakeK66: tell you what, I have lots of space over here; you buy them, I’ll drive / store them…

Yes – we can all argue about which is more cost efficient, but in the end which one
will people actually BUY ?

FWD or RWD ……American people say one thing and buy another. My money is not on FWD.

If they try to do this – look for buyers to look at imports more.

Fromes – you are right on the money ……

As much as I hate to agree with Borat the demise of the RWD Chrysler platform has two things against it, low enough sales volume that it is unrealistic to sink more R&D into it and it does not fit the new 4 person boards vision that will be assigned to manage Chrysler. I give the RWD platforms 120 days at most.

This is an incredible loss for car enthusiasts. Viper, you were THE best!

The Dodge Viper was my favorite car as a ten year old. As an adult it is still up there on my top ten list even if it makes absolutely no sense. I hope it doesn’t go, but it will. I hope some company steps up and buys the tooling from Chrysler so that it will live on under another name.

As for the demise of RWD…. it’s possible but I doubt that will happen. For certain, it isn’t so much that Washington THINKS we all want underpowered, boring high MPG cars but that it doesn’t WANT us driving anything else (and never mind what the police cruisers and other law enforcement will use).

Owning a fun car may get more expensive and complicated but as far as I’m concerned, it it all gets too boring I’ll be buying the same old vintage RWD cars.

Let me explain myself: demise of RWD is highly exaggerated. Demise of inexpensive (for masses) RWD sedan is not. There always will be Benz, BMW, Lexus, Infinity in this niche, but it is niche and as any niche it will not be cheap.

Nah, no kidding. Viper is doing better than Vette. Chrysler is killing their snake, for what? I love Viper among all american cars.

the grammar in Borats comments is really starting to give me a headache.

Gotta agree with Borat on this one. MPG requirements will kill affordable RWD mainstream vehicles. Yes the Camaro and others with continue but look for more expensive, highly efficient drivetrains. Do you really think that California (which will run the epa) regs will allow a vehicle the Camaro’s size to only get 27 highway? No way. It will take some expensive revisions to keep it past 2015.

BMW will be selling 3 series here with 4 cylinders. Anyway that is my projection!

Cadillac, BMW, MB and a few sports cars will be the only ones left.

Borat is right, and all the blame goes to CAFE who pretty much wants us to drive a Prius which of course will never happen. I’m getting sick of them saying oh by 2012 your car must get 30 mpg. I can see manual gearboxes going away. As for the end of the road for the Viper, that’s sad because that (and the Ford GT) was better than the Corvette.

Good. This car was really useless outside of a rich kids play thing, and even then you can do better for $80k. Also you can totally have a lot of fun with less gas burning. Try the Elise, or better yet the Telsa. Same fun, less pollution.

A4, take 2 aspirins and make love to yourself.

Man, what a bummer that it is WRONG. Go read the press again – they announced these would close at the end of 2010. Funny, because the WSJ announced this same basic date for some of these plants almost TWO YEARS AGO when the new UAW contract was signed. And with a 2010 closing and at least four suitors interested in buying the platform (reported a couple months ago), the Viper is anything but dead. But it sure got you some website hits!

I have an uncle at the Viper plant.
Sucks

A shame about those jobs, but the car was a dinosaur. I was somewhat excited about Vipers when they first came out. Then I discovered it was NOT cheaper than a Corvette and handled horribly, due to the idiotic “long hood-short rear” syndrome. I can’t believe a car with late 80’s styling cues stayed around this long. Plus, in 15 years they only built 25,000 of them? No wonder they went Chapter 11!!

Wiper Club, I think you came onto something different: perhaps Snake reached its life expectancy dead line. Acura NSX was discontinued after 8-10 years, Honda S2000 is being discontinued after about 10 years. Perhaps it’s all you can milk out of specialty vehicle. The only exception to the rule is ‘Vette. “Tang was on and off few times already. Perhaps if ChryCo was in terrific shape it would be the end of specialty model for this cycle anyway? Those specialty beasts have to bring crowd into showroom, once novelty is over, it is over for the model.

Actually, the Viper is pretty darn profitable – it had to be under the Germans (Daimler). Those that think you need to mass-produce a car don’t understand niche vehicles like Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc.

The UAW contract specifically mentioned closing CAAP at the end of the life cycle – as in the current Gen IV SRT10 body style and drive train. It even stipulates that the “UAW will continue to advocate for new product” specifically as it relates to CAAP. And who is currently the majority owner of Chrysler? The UAW. Don’t count out the Viper by any means at this point.

And while a few misguided people may slam the styling (that Corvette virtually copied for the C6) or the performance/handling (which currently holds the record for Nurburgring), the simple fact is that when a small country like Italy can support multiple exotic car makers, the United States most definitely can support at least one. My bet is it will be the Viper – regardless of who actually owns the platform.

It will be missed.

(And that’s from a TOYOTA enthusiast)

Yeah.

I thought that was an oxymoron