2012 Dodge Viper Concept shown to dealers - report

Any pics to comment on? It sounds nice from the report, but the ultimate judge of that car will be the people. (yep, that means you dear reader). And if it happens to be true the rumor of the technology sharing from Ferrari (HARD to believe, but its a possibility) then, ladies and gentlemen say hello to the new american magnifico ?ber sport car with it's good old magnifico ?bertreiben engine. (yes, I did mix words from 3 different languages to better explain the origin of the new viper. And yes, I know for some will be a bad joke. Enjoy!)

This idea sounds like fun. I would love to see some Ferrari tech adapted to that huge V10. Imagine what 8.4L would sound like over 10,000rpm's. But please Dodge don't let the Italians design your heat shields!

This doesn't appear to be a concept. If so, the next vi[per is going to be pitifully cautious.

sorry, but I think this future Viper just lost its edge, its aggressiveness, which made the previous generation what it was... a lean, mean machine... just wait for one more generation and we'll see a small kitten compared to the first generation, eventually with the Lancia brand on it... yuck...

wait a sec, I thought the viper line had ended. second of all. what exactly is deffirent from this viper than the rest, this is almost as bad as the vette. coming outing out with new models, with barely anything notacable except a new upgraded engine. give me a break. one word, BORING.

The new mercedes gullwing coupe is actually the 2012 viper test mule

If it is based on the SLS chassis it will be smaller in all dimensions, length and width. Engine wise, for some reason i doubt ferrari did much work for them. I would also hope that they went with a smaller lighter engine. Also i hope that some class and quality has been kept from the SLS. But we shall see, could be just another tractor engine wrapped in tree sap.

What hapened to no more viper, EVER? Oh well, another car only a maniac could manhandle to get the best out of it- I LOVE IT!!! I somehow always thought, if there was a new Mad Max movie, he'd HAVE to drive a viper, and a Humvee

How do Americans manage to get an 8 litre engine to produce so little horsepower??! Just 50bhp or so more than a 5 litre European lump.....

Merc 6.3.... 571bhp in an SLS or 525bhp ish in most others depending on which model its shoe horned into..

If you look at it in terms of BHP per cylinder. the SLS is nearly 20% more powerful. 600/10 = 60BHP Viper, 571/8 = 71.375BHP SLS. So in BHP stakes Europe wins.

Yeah but is 2.1 litres less than a viper lump thats a normal car engines difference and yet only produces 29bhp less than the viper... without a supercharger or anything like that. MPG i'm not sure your gallons are bigger than ours so not comparable. I'm just saying 8 litres you should be getting more bhp....

Math is a wonderful thing...IF you know what you are looking for. If you want to continue this debate get some dyno graphs from the 6.2L Merc and the Viper, look at torque at the same RPM, preferably the lowest rpm where both engines are in the flat-line. Then find out the fuel rate for both engines at that rpm, and divide fuel/torque. Use that ratio for arguing which engine is better.

My point is thats European or even Jap engines never need to get that big to get figures of 600bhp. Ferrari, Mercs and BMW dont have 8.4 litre engines and get close to (or over in Ferrari's case) 600bhp even with no use use of a form of turbo or supercharger. Just highlights to me how old the tech must be in that V10 Dodge are still using. Thank you radmeister for your very comprehensive solutions.... sounds like and excuse to obtain an SLS and a Viper and have a play on a dyno and a track too. : )

@joe, dude, you are just plane wrong. You may love the american cars, but you seem to lack an understanding of engineering. Higher reving motors have a higher dynamic compression, higher compression motors ARE MORE EFFICIENT, no matter what. Considering drivtrain losses, that is up to the design of the drive train, obviously AWD has a greater loss and the difference in loss between any RWD car is negligible. Why don't car manufacturers use 600cc motors, because they don't have the torque for every day driving. Why is ford switching to turbo motors in most of their cars, oh yeah, it's because smaller turbo motor's are more efficient. Guess what Joe, if an engine and engine management system is well designed it will last as long with an 8k redline as an american V8 at 6.5K and it will be more efficient. You take you're 29mpg and 1 passenger, I'll take my 4 passengers and 22mpg.

Joe spinning a 2lb chunk of mass takes more energy even once you get it up to speed. Especially in a V engine or Inline where you are constantly fighting gravity. Turbo engines ARE more efficient, simple law of physics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, therefore by utilizing some of the energy that would otherwise be wasted as exhaust gas pressure it is more efficient. Also you could not realistically use a 600cc motor in a normal 3200-4000lb car, the reason being that it would require a lot of gears, and by a lot i mean over 20. Which in return means a very heavy transmission. Having that much weight directly linked to the engine would most likely stall it. But then again that is assuming you are still limiting yourself to the standard piston engine dynamics. You could in theory do it with a rotary or completely ignore even the limitations of rotary engines and go to a gas turbine. At the end of the day i think all engines are relatively equally efficient, all of them achieve complete combustion regardless of their compression, sure some may need only 87 octane and some 91 but complete combustion is still achieved. The only variables where energy could be lost once you realize that fuel has the same caloric value, and therefore by achieving complete combustion all engines are using the same energy /L of gas then what is left is quite simple. Internal mass of the engine and the drive-train along with friction. This is the reason why most car makers are going to alloys instead of cast iron for internal parts. The downside to reducing internal mass is it reduces your torque, but increases maximum rpm therefore increasing compression and HP. Also FYI the viper does not have 600hp at 1200rpm, never said there was anything wrong with that, i said that it achieves that hwy fuel economy because of a long final gear. If you were to downshift and be in 5th at roughly 2800rpm then you would be not getting that mpg.

Joe.... Turbos make engines more efficient because they increase its volumetric efficientcy... i.e more air into the same size pot... and as for this. The downside to reducing internal mass is it reduces your torque" "lmao, reduces torque eh? Just like how putting light weight rims on your car reduces engine torque... oooh wait it doesn't lmao!"] No light weight rims reduce the unsprung mass of a car....the internal massives DO effect the torque or turning force of an engine.. a light weight flywheel will reduce torque and even stop an engine idling properly altogether because its that weight that keeps the engine turning inbetween the firing strokes. Thats why the likes of an F1 car will idle at 5000rpm... any less and it stalls...... anyway.... still European engines... produce similar horsepower figures without having to resort to 8 litre plus capacities.... there MUST be mechanical inefficiencies there, or ts just because its old technology derived from a pickup truck engine.

Not true... flywheels effect the torque of an engine.... My ducati 748 track bike. I was told to fit a lighter flywheel to improve engine pick up. This did work but when pulling away you needed loads more revs and i lost some drive out of corners due to less torque. So the flywheel is back to standard. Anyway I've been looking and as yet havent found an engine from America without a supercharger or turbo that has more power than a European competitor of the same CC. Sorry.... as nice a looking car as the Viper is that engine is just old hat.... hence the Ferrari referance at the end of the article.