Quote:
Originally Posted by King T
I think it's more based on that Dodge knows they can sell more Hellcat Challengers than Vipers.
Chevrolet is not the only company with a performance Hierarchy
-A Lamborghini Huracan will never have more power than a Lamborghini Aventador
-A Porsche Boxster/Cayman will never have more power than a 911 (and Porsche is scared of that happening)
The power of the Hellcat could have been based on the sales of the Viper. It has had 2 years to take note and adjust the dialed in hp because of it. If the Viper had sold the numbers that Chrysler had projected (around 2,000/year) then I think the hellcat would have been capped some. With the Viper selling only 591 cars for the whole year in 2013, it is safe to say Dodge is choosing going with a hot hand and giving the Hellcat more than Viper power since it will most likely sell more than the Viper.
The all new Lamborghini Huracan goes for $237,000 and had 700 pre-orders in the first month available for order, while Vipers still sit on the lot.
My question is what does this mean for the Viper? It is said that the Hellcat can't physically fit in the current Viper, so that raises three things for me:
-Will the Viper get a hp boost in the V10 to put it back over the Challenger? It was said the engineers already had to work miracles to get the Gen 5 V10 to pass the emissions standards of today.
-Is this the end of the V10 Viper? We could be seeing a preview of the next Viper engine. But will people like the Viper having a "normal supercharged V8" like other cars in the industry, no longer be unique with a V10?
-Could this be a sign that this is the end of the Viper, and that Fiat (who also owns Ferrrari) could care less about the Viper?
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Trust me Dodge has been working on this engine well before the viper was announced much less released. Lack of Viper sales played no part in the HP decided for the HellCat. Look for the Viper to retake the HP thrown with the refresh. Hopefully that will boost sales to where they need to be. If not, we could be saying bye to the viper again.
Makes sense to me if they do follow through with the much lighter Cuda. I cant see them making that car with 700+ and coming in at 34-3600lbs. Just too close to Viper performance in what will be likely an easier car to get that performance out of.