I was invited by a couple of car companies to the New York Auto Show these days but, since I live far, far away, I’ve had to follow the show from other sites. And the car that impressed me the most was the brand spanking new 2013 Viper, unveiled by SRT, the high performance car group within Chrysler.
The new Viper is just.. extremely sleek and aggressive in the same time, featuring one of the most stunning designs I’ve seen at any new cars, with more curves than an F1 track and a lot of high tech features and racing accents, both outside and inside of the cockpit. But what’s even more important than the car’s look can be found under the hood..
The 2013 SRT Viper comes with a massive 8.4-liter V10 engine that’s able to produce 640 horsepower and 600 lb-ft (814 Nm) of torque, 40 hp and 40 lb-ft more than the previous model. All this power goes to the car’s rear wheels through a six speed manual transmission and a speed sensing limited slip differential.
Next, besides being more powerful than its predecessor, the new Viper is also lighter thanks to a new tubular steel space frame and a lot of body elements made of carbon fiber (hood, roof, liftgate). This makes it 100 lbs (45 kg) lighter than the “old” Viper with a total weight of just 3,354 lbs or 1,521 kg.
We don’t know how freaking fast is the car right now but from that 8.4-liter V10 I think the speed will be extreme. There’s also a better suspension, Brembo brakes, ultra light 18 or 19 inch wheels with high performance Pirelli P Zero tires and many other goodies to handle all this power.
