Quote:
Originally Posted by Bangkok_ZL1
Since I'm almost 60, I do remember. And like all cars, including the C-8 now. Word had been out amongst car lovers even before the motor shows in 1989 when the Prototype Viper hit the audience and the magazines. So when Dodge came out of nowhere and hit the general public of America with a base model exotic looking car with a 400 horse V-10 that sported serious lines and 275/335 tires. Yes, Chevy took note and got off their butts and started working. And that war started the best comeback for performance cars in the USA. Because up till then the Vettes only "competition" was from a Mustang that had a few hundred horses at the most and looked God awful with the worst body lines ever drawn on paper, a freakin AMC Pacer had better body lines (OK, maybe that one's a tie). And as GM tried to keep up with the Viper, and it was always GM trying to keep up with the viper IN THE POWER DEPARTMENT, performance of all cars got better and better. The car industry realized that power sells. Then Ford started to get their stuff together, with a GT coming out also. And as each kept trying to make their flagship car better, the general public kept getting better performance cars. Literally, I just bought a new car that has exactly twice the HP as when I was selling Toyota's Flagship Supra back in 93 (and that was considered a badass car back then), and almost 3 times the Hp as when I sold camaros in 95 (If my memory serves me correctly the 1LE packed camaro had 275hp). That's my perspective of how it all unfolded. When the Viper came out, the performance world from the manufacturers changed drastically. But Chrysler couldn't capitalize and follow through. They didn't evolutionize like the Vette, so they became like the dinosaurs, extinct. And look at the Vette now, poised to take on the exotics at 1/3rd the price.
By the way, I used to live in Boise. Absolutely love it there; America's best kept secret.
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Boise is awesome, but don't tell anyone as we've grown enough! Actually I like growth if done right (and I'm not a native).
Anyway, yes, I agree that the Viper changed the game, forcing GM to adapt w/ the Corvette but GM was even slow with that. After the C4 ZR1 went out of production in 1995, GM didn't really have anything to compete with the Viper until the C5 Z06 in 2002. And even then it was still behind the 1997 GTS in terms of power, but then came along the 500 hp 2003 Viper. I'd say GM didn't really catch up until the 505 hp C6 Z06 and of course the 638 hp C6 ZR1.
The Pony cars lagged behind pretty badly in the hp dept., though, until the Terminator Cobras in 2003 w/ an underrated 390 hp. Before that it was the 320 hp Cobra, 325 hp Camaro SS and WS6 (there was a Firehawk Trans Am that made 335 hp, I believe). While the big dog 'Vette of the era (4th gen Z06) was up to 405 hp by 2002 (but several hundred pounds lighter than the Cobra), and of course the Viper (GTS) was 450 hp by 1997, and 500 hp by 2003. Obviously when the Camaro was out of production the GT500 started to get serious hp numbers (500 hp) a few years later.
In hindsight, I doubt we'd have 650 hp ZL1s, 760 hp GT500s and 717 to 797 hp Hellcats if there was no Viper to push the American power vacuum in the 90s and early 2000s.