If you?re feeling just too damn chipper today and want to bring your spirits down a notch, check out Ralph Gilles’s Instagram feed (@RalphGilles)?specifically his series of multiphoto #tbt retrospective posts about the illustrious life of the fifth (and likely final) generation of the Dodge Viper. Couched within the wistful depictions of motorsports events and owner gatherings is a post simply captioned ?So long . . . #Viper? that depicts the renowned designer standing in front of a yellow Viper, followed a few slides later by images of an empty assembly line with a lone red Viper in the distance. You can almost hear the crickets. Or are they sobbing line workers"
Scrolling down the comments on that particular post, a couple of interesting last-Viper tidbits emerge. First, that yellow Viper was a car commissioned by Gilles?s good friend, and the fact that it was being built on that particular day was a ?total fluke.? And second, that the red car was in fact the last one built?or ?the ultimate last one,? to use Gilles?s words. That car, according to the comment, will be kept by the company for its heritage collection, where we can envision it being displayed next to the 1989 Dodge Viper concept, which also wore a coat of screaming red paint.
In response to one commenter, Gilles did provide the reason?or at least a reason?for the Viper?s death, and it was not lack of sales: ?It sold well over the last couple of years at a great mix of mostly ACRs in the last 15 m...