You guys know I love the Dodge Viper. Well, I finally got a chance to put someone else’s money where my mouth is and spent the past three months daily driving the 2015 Viper GT that Freiburger and Finnegan off-roaded in Episode 38 of Roadkill. Dodge had strongly encouraged the company to buy the car after its motorcross excursion, and since then, it had been sitting in the parking garage at the office.
I drove the Viper every day and quickly found its strengths (long road trips, desert jaunts, winding roads, impressing teenagers) and its weak points (tight parking garages, drive-thru windows, Costco runs).
The whole time I had it, people kept saying, “Boy, you are going to have a hard time going back to your old cars after this.” I think they assumed the Viper was better because it was newer and has six times the power of the Opel. Yes, it was gloriously fast and it was nice to have a working defroster, but the real reason I like the Viper is because it is a new car that has the soul of an old one. Driving it every day requires concentration and some physicality. The payoff for your attentiveness is a sense of connection and accomplishment. All those admiring looks from other drivers don’t hurt, either. But here’s the thing: I get admiring looks in the old cars, too. I feel connected to the machinery and the road, and it isn’t $600 to replace a flat tire. So while I really loved the Viper GT, I’ll be just as happy behind the wheel in the Opel GT.
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