The Dodge Viper, the iconic all-American sports car which was launched almost a quarter of a century ago in 1992, will be ending production in 2017.
The information was acquired by automobile news website Automotive News based on a new contract between Fiat Chrysler and the United Auto Workers union. The contract discussed the end of production for the Dodge Viper at Fiat Chrysler's Conner Avenue Assembly Plant, located in Detroit.
The plans for the end of production for the Dodge Viper included in the contract will be voted on by members of the United Auto Workers union next week. The sports car has been built at Conner Avenue since 1995, where it is assembled by around 80 workers.
After first going into production in 1992, the Dodge Viper received updates in 1996, 2003 and 2008. However, its run was interrupted in 2010 when Chrysler declared bankruptcy.
The Dodge Viper was revived three years later in 2013, but sales for the sports car never took off due to a huge increase in price and the improvement of the vehicle's competitors. In 2014, only 760 units of the Dodge Viper were sold, and so far in the year, only 503 units have been sold. These figures are a stark contrast to the sports car's peak popularity back in 2003, when 2,103 units of the Dodge Viper were rolled out.
The Dodge Viper has always had a 10-cylinder engine, and at its launch, it packed 400 horsepower, which was a figure that was amazing at the time. Now, the sports car features 640 horsepower, and despite the power, the Dodge Viper has actually become more user-friendly. Comfort upgrades have been added, including air conditioning, navigation features and better exhaust systems.
The $5.3 billion contract between Fiat Chrysler and the United Auto Workers union does not indicate a replacement vehicle to fill the void for the Dodge Viper assembly line in Conner Avenue, which could mean that the around 80 workers working on the assembly line could be laid off.
The contract, however, remains unapproved. There is the possibility that the Dodge Viper could possibly just be moving its production to another facility, but the financials needed to make such a thing happen is almost an impossible factor to hurdle.
