The truth about driving a supercar every day | Articles

Life Far From the Edge

First disclaimer: This is not a track test of the Dodge Viper. And before you scream at us that we’ve wussed out, please open the February 2014 edition of GRM for a complete track review of this car. No, this is about real life, and real life rarely visits the race track. Real life is full of trips to the grocery store, humdrum errands, drive-thru windows, high curbs and low-attention-span drivers. Taking a Viper to a race track is easy. We know it excels between the apexes and the braking points. But how would it do between the Applebee’s and the Barnes & Noble?

Acquisition

For us, acquiring a Viper was easy. Well, relatively speaking. Press fleets usually have lots more Grand Caravans than exotic sports cars, so scheduling a week with a Viper involved some extra complexity. And when a journalist borrowing the car before us had a run-in with a curb–perhaps a testament to the fact that self-restraint is one of the most important requirements of supercar stewardship– our weeklong slot got pushed back while a new wheel was sourced.

But once it showed, the handover was barely more ceremonious than if it had been a Camry or Accord. The drop-off happened at our home instead of at the office, sure, but everything else was standard. Keys, signature, quick rundown of a few buttons, and “Have a nice day, sir.”

Once the attendant from the media motor pool cleared the area, though, something unusual happened. We immediately became acquainted with several neighbors who never thought to walk across the street when a Hyundai Elantra was in the driveway.

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