The red snake hasn’t touched the ground in 15 years and now needs some urgent TLC
November 8, 2024 at 11:17
- A Dodge Viper that spent 28 years on top of a Kentucky dealership sign has been brought back down to Earth.
- Audubon Chrysler has only removed the Viper once before for a refresh and that was 15 years ago.
- Images of the Viper back on firm ground reveal the ravaged paintwork and a ton of straw under the front clam.
For nearly 30 years, a Dodge Viper perched high above a Kentucky dealership sign has served as a bizarre, sky-high monument to Mopar muscle and marketing theatrics. But now, the red roadster is back down on terra firma. The V10 sports car’s tires have been in contact with the air just once in 28 years, and that was for a refresh 15 years ago.
“This gal is getting a makeover,” wrote Henderson-based Audubon Chrysler in a Facebook post. “If you notice the Viper coming down today it’s to clean it up and give it some new paint! We promise the Viper will be back to sitting high in the sky in no time!”
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Pictures of the second iteration of the first-gen Viper RT/10 (produced from 1996 to 2002) acclimatizing to life at a lower altitude on the Audubon lot serve as a reminder of why most folks with nice cars don’t leave them outside, even in states that experience less extreme weather conditions. The red paint, baked by years of summer sun, has gone flat, a layer of lacquer seemingly peeled away, the headlight glass is green and the clip-in black plastic side windows are covered in a thick coating of algae.
We don’t get to see inside the 1996 Viper to find out how weatherproof those 1950s-style windows are, though we’re guessing it’s pretty mouldy in there. But we do get to see under the clamshell hood, which appears to have served as a handy nest for birds in the Henderson area.
Huge amounts of straw behind the Viper‘s front wheels suggest birds have been crawling in the vent ahead of the doors to shelter from cats and the weather, and the V10 engine itself is coated in some rather unpleasant looking brown goo.
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But the fact that there is an engine may be a surprise to many, who might have assumed that the Viper was just an empty shell, the kind of thing movie producers create by dressing up a wreck so they don’t have to go to the expense of blowing up a real car.
Some Facebook commenters claim the car must be an early pre-production Viper that was no longer needed by Chrysler, but could not legally be registered for road use. But Alec Girvin cuts through the rumors. He says he works at the dealership, that the car was brand new when it first went up in 1996 and had just 12 miles (19 km) on the clock.
Back then it was wearing its original wheels, which must have been swapped for the then-popular chrome alloys when it was given a tidy 15 years ago.
Big thanks to Scott Harris for sharing his Viper images with us!
