Underrated: Chrysler Viper RT/10

There was nothing like it at the time, and I’ve not driven anything quite like it since, not even the second-generation versions, which got a bit more power and a lot more polish but were also a whole lot less fiendish to drive – at all speeds and in any conditions but especially on a wet road. The later versions still needed skill and precision to keep on the straight and narrow, true, but they were nowhere near as spikey as the original roadsters, which were a handful even in a quiet car park.

I’ve been fortunate enough to drive quite a few examples over the years, but I have two specific memories of doing so that will never leave me, possibly because they still haunt me in a sadistic kind of way. The first was at Goodwood. The second was on the Mille Miglia, alongside my then boss and Ti’s co-founder, Andrew Frankel.

On both occasions it was in the exact same car, Chrysler’s first UK press car, which wore the number plate WOW 110T. Number plate rules have changed a great deal since then but at the time Chrysler’s head of public relations, Peter Rawlinson, worked out that if you put the black dot that went on top of the screw that held the right-hand side of the number plate in position, it turned the 11 into an H. Thus equipped, the number plate read WOW HOT, which sounds thoroughly naff in 2023 but looked quite ballsy to a wide-eyed road tester in 1993.

Anyway, my Goodwood epiphany in WOW HOT occurred on the track, on which I’d been tasked with setting a lap time in it for that year’s ‘Best Handling Car’ shindig. The circuit was still damp in places and although several people had already driven the thing and survived to tell the tale, most of them had climbed out not knowing quite what to say. Some looked like they’d been shown what awaits them in the afterlife while others just looked petrified. So I rumbled out of the pitlane in it – knowing I was on the clock – with a fair degree of trepidation.

Five laps later I came back to the pits oscillating with adrenalin, having just about managed to bond with a car that, to begin with, seemed almost impossible to keep under control. It was unbelievably edgy near the limit, understeering through some corners then twitching wildly into oversteer on a vicious wave of torque out of others, in a way I’d never experienced before – in any car, road or race. Yet after a lap or two I realised there was enough raw grip from its huge tyres to still make it go pretty fast through most corners, so long as I kept well within its limits, and down the straights it was a complete madman, even in a gear higher than was necessary.

True, the steering was too fast in its response just off centre, the body was too stiffly suspended for its own good through most corners, the tyres too thin of sidewall to prevent the Viper’s body from weaving its way neurotically across most of Goodwood’s tricky undulations. And the ease with which it would break traction – or lock its front and/or rear tyres under brakes – meant it had to be treated with the delicacy of someone trying to disarm a bomb, rather than drive a mere car.

But if you stroked it round as if your cat’s ear was attached to the brake and accelerator, and somehow managed to keep your heart rate below 160bpm in the process, there was a rare level of satisfaction to be had from the Viper on a damp track. I found it completely fascinating to drive – maybe only because it was so unhinged. Whatever the reasoning, it set a mighty quick time, one of the fastest of the entire group, and there were some very quick cars at Goodwood that year.

My second memory of the Viper is, if anything, even more intense, and it involved driving from Dover, straight through the night, all the way down to Brescia in northern Italy for the start of the Mille Miglia, which we had full beans media passes for that year. It rained most of the way there, and because we’d left the hood behind (because it was pathetic) Commander Frankel and I realised we’d get soaked if we drove the car too slowly. So instead, taking turns, we drove it as fast as we could, all the way down to Italy.

At one point Andrew fell asleep in the passenger seat, and stayed asleep for about an hour, during which time I had a quiet but fairly dramatic dust-up with a 911 Turbo. Unbeknown to Andrew I very nearly dropped the Viper trying to stay with the 911 around the gentlest of wet bends on an autostrada. That was fun, sort of.

Next day, following the Mille Miglia itself, the Italian crowds went nuts for the Viper. At one point we chased a 250 Testa Rossa across a mountain with a pair of Italian police motorcycle riders parting the traffic ahead as we went. When the TR driver decided he’d had enough, he passed the bikes and accelerated into the distance along a never-ending straight, the Viper’s speedometer showing well north of 140mph as the old racing Ferrari left us behind. The sound of its V12 engine at full steam is something I will never forget. It made the Viper’s V10 wail seem momentarily inconsequential, and almost entirely mute.

Then two days later it was over, and the Viper was driven back to the UK, having missed not a single beat nor terrified anyone who drove it. It nailed our brief completely and sent half of Italy into a state of ecstasy in the process.

Of course the car had its faults. The V10 was highly effective at producing enormous hits of torque and acceleration but it was far from a charismatic engine overall. The gearing was also way too long and cumbersome, the suspension was wound up far too stiff for most European roads and the steering was often difficult to read. Plus it really was terrifying in the wet. But I loved it, warts and all, and not a great deal has altered that opinion since.

I still think it’s one of the most underrated sports cars of the last 30 years, and not just because it has enough pure performance to remove the fillings in your teeth and looks like it should be driven by Superman – although these things help, of course, as they always will.