When I talk about engine performance I like to see at least 100 more hp than ci. The ZO6 is 78, but the Ford GT is about 220. Yes i would like to see GM doing it a little better but 78 is not bad. Dodge pushed about 5. Also I was not comparing any Ferrari to any Dodge just the way Ferrari refined a line of cars to Dodge affords at refining.
I stick by my statement..... the ZR-1 and the RT-10 started something awesome and we would not be where we are today with out them.
Oh and I'm not talking about top speed when it comes to the 98 GTS vs the 2006 viper. Track performance, and the Nurburgring elapsed times don't lie. The GTS was the fastest Dodge to see that track. Oh and a side note the base C6 still beat it. Nothing against the GTS. I love that car, but Dodge has to lead fallow or get out of the way!

 

This thread needs to die already...noone in here will tell you anything diff...yeah the corvette beat the viper srt-10 coupe for once in 10+ years of the vipers road experience. Chevy is broke, they sould have spent more time in fixing all the quirks with their coupes and sedans before releasing them and giving shallow promises (performance and engineering wise). They've spent too much in marketing and production of all their vehicles when america wasnt buying them. Ford was the same case. They made poor looking crappy vehicles and most of all they looked like knock offs. You cant compare any european supercar to any american they are two completely different price tags and motors. The Me 412 is the closest american to -euro car out there. ANd way better then most of them with the highest pricetags. Lamborghini had its own struggles that chrysler improved on when they owned part of them in the 80s. Maseratti was another to be worked with by chrysler as well. We dont care about Ferrari cuz they really cant compete w/out lowering their price tag.

 

Ok.
I have questioned the vipers top speed for a while. I did some research yesterday and found some very interesting things. First Dodge and everone who test the viper says it's top speed is about 190. People on the forums talk about it making trips to 199 ungoverned. I have only found facts pointing towards the viper having a rev limiter but not governed. So I look a little deeper in this whole mess. First I used a control car. The new ZO6. I picked that car because it has be test but everybody and their brother. It top out at 198. It has about 505 hp with a drag coefficient of .34(now keep this in mind .34cd). Understanding that at 190 mph a car needs 5 hp to go 1mph faster; a picture starts to be painted. If the ZO6 wants to hit 200mph it needs about 515 hp. Ok very good example. Now the viper. IT is said that it could do 199, well that would seem to add up at first. ZO6 does 198, the viper has about 510 hp, 1mph =5hp. IT seems like that could happen, but wait Oh, do you remember that drag thing I was talking about. Well the vipers CD is .39, and with some math tricks I came to a top speed sum of 189 for the viper. That is 1mph slower than anything I have seen before so I thought my math was a little shady. Until I found a website by a guy that said his viper would do 189 and some change. It all started to make sense. 189.758946887 is rounded to 190 and everyone is happy to print that. SO what I'm saying is that the viper is drag limited to 190. Yeah you could get a stock one to do 199 but you would have to push out the back of a cargo plane.
formulas I used; Cd=D/rA*v^2/2
Aerodynamic drag= 1/2D*A*v^2

 

If the 2006 could dominate Nurburgring... Dodge should take it there with one of it's factory drivers. So far the top spot is held by the Carrera GT. I think it may get unseated by the ZO6. The ZO6 came in second on street tires some 10seconds behind. THe Carrera has about 100 more hp, and if the ZO6 was on slicks we could be looking at a new world king. Don't even think about the hp, just put some slicks on it and take it back. So for the viper to dominate there it has to bring it, and right now it's being brought by another car. Maybe one day but not today, not tomorrow, or next week!