Looks like Dodge is getting serious about differentiating the Viper from its arch rival Corvette. After a thorough trouncing on the sales charts, Chrysler is moving the Viper upmarket as a boutique supercar, custom built to a customer’s exact taste right here in the US of A at The Conner Avenue assembly plant in beautiful downtown Detroit.
Here’s how it works, beginning when an order is placed a “concierge“ service is linked to the car. At every stage of assembly, the future Viper owner will have a contact at the factory and live streaming updates and pictures documenting the build progress via a customer portal on the SRT website. You can even drop in at the plant and have a look if you want.
Usually, a customer who seeks such customization wants to make sure they don’t see themselves at every stop light or car show, so Dodge promises that no custom order can be duplicated by another buyer. There will be an infinite amount of variations available with a mind boggling array of choices – 25 million different combinations to be exact. Dodge is offering up to 8,000 hand-painted exterior colors, 24,000 hand-painted custom stripes, 10 wheel options,16 interior trims, six aero packages, and plethora of additional standalone options. Dodge will send a complimentary 1:18 scale Viper “speed form” replica to buyers to confirm their color selection. Cool.
All of this ain’t cheap. The 2015 Dodge Viper GTC custom model features all the content of the GT model and adds “one-of-one”‘ design, a personalized instrument panel badge, Concierge Service and Viper Ambassador Owner’s Portal with exclusive sharable content to track the build of the car for an MSRP $94,995. Dealers will start taking orders in February, and production is scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2015.
Whether this “bespoke” campaign will move the sales needle is yet to be seen as Viper sales for 2014 (YTD) were 760 units as compared to 34,839 C7s sold in the same period.