Article from Road & Track Magazine..."When you think of the ultimate street-legal race car, you probably think of the McLaren P1, Porsche 918, or the Ferrari LaFerrari. Unfortunately, if your definition of "ultimate" involves putting down the fastest possible lap time at a track, you'd probably be wrong to pick any of those three.
Yep, on tracks like Laguna Seca, Road Atlanta, and Virginia International Raceway, if you want to set the fastest time, you'll need to be driving something a bit more American—a Dodge Viper ACR.According to FCA, the Dodge Viper ACR holds the lap record not just at those three tracks but at 10 more, as well.
"The SCCA has certified that the new 2016 Dodge Viper ACR holds more track records than any other production car in the world," said Tim Kuniskis, FCA's North American Head of Passenger Car Brands."We expected our new Viper ACR to be the fastest street-legal Viper track car ever. Now we know without a doubt that it is."
For comparison, Randy Pobst ran the Viper ACR with the Extreme Aero pack around Laguna Seca and set a record lap time of 1:28.65, beating the previous record—set by a Porsche 918―by 1.24 seconds."
American car maker Dodge has confirmed it will stop producing its Viper supercar after 2017 production ends, also celebrating the nameplate’s 25th anniversary. To commemorate the final year of the ‘snake’ and its 25th anniversary, the company has revealed five special editions that also pay tribute to some of the Viper’s most iconic offerings of years past.
Since the first Viper launched in 1992, Dodge has built around 30,000 units of the V10-powered supercar at its Mack Avenue (1992-1994) and Corner Avenue (1995-current) assembly plants in Detroit.
Afterreports that Dodge would cease production of the iconic supercar surfaced last year, the company has now confirmed that no Vipers will be manufactured beyond 2017.
The current ‘2017’ Dodge Viper is hand-built at the Corner Avenue facility, powered by an all-aluminium 8.4-litre V10 petrol engine that produces 645 horsepower (481kW) and 813Nm of torque – which Dodge claims is the most torque of any naturally-aspirated sports car engine in the world.
Each of the five special editions commemorate an iconic Viper variant of the past, also featuring a serialised instrument panel badge. Orders for the limited-edition Vipers commence June 24 and immediately sold out.
2017 Dodge Viper VooDoo II Edition ACR Extreme revives the black and graphite colour scheme of the original 2010 Viper Voodoo special.
The Voodoo II Viper is also limited to just 31 units, and features a black exterior with graphite ACR driver’s stripe – that features a red outline – ACR interior with contrasting silver stitching, carbon-ceramic brakes, Voodoo II exterior sill decals.