1996 Dodge Viper GTS - Jay Leno's Garage

i hate modern cars where you have to hold the button and go baby are you happy with selection yes how happy are you very would you choose this station again yes i would shut up just let me drive the car welcome covert enthusiasts to another episode of gentlemen's garage pandemic edition the car i'm featuring today my 1996 viper gts coupe you know i always like the first generation of any car that's when i think they get it right i like the first generation viper i like the first generation mustang you know then they kind of get fat and unwieldy and i just like that clean first year design and this one the pete brock inspired coupe this knocked my socks off when it came out i just love the look of it i love the color i love the stripes plus it was a viper with air conditioning and roll-up windows which was oh that seems great you know i'd gotten my uh my my other viper the convertible we did that one a couple weeks ago if you're enthusiasts you saw that one and then about two years later i got a call from uh bob lutz hey jay we got a coop coming out you know and i really wasn't looking for a coupe but i could be talking to behind the car pretty quick he goes i want you to have one of the first ones i said okay you know i already got away but oh no not like this it's got 50 more horsepower and you know i'm i'm glad i bought it i bought it new i've had it now what is it 25 years something like that geez it's it's almost hard to believe uh it still looks good still runs great uh this has 450 horsepower versus 400 like the viper as i mentioned air conditioning and a few other things but oh and it's the first year of onboard diagnostics the obd which is at the time seems something from outer space it has a you know you plug in and you read the codes you know the first car i have that had on-board diagnostics was the mclaren f1 you know how i was trying to get the mclaren f1 in every episode okay and when i got that i remember them telling me it comes with this huge computer deal with some crazy antique laptop and you can plug it in in california and in england they can analyze what's wrong with you well that's impossible that doesn't seem like that something from out of no no they can actually tell you what's wrong with you well how can they do that you know it just seemed like something uh science fiction back in the day and you know i have to admit the on-board diagnostics does help you find problems i had a number of problems with the car i had my mclaren slr and i brought in to get a smog check and the check engine light was on i couldn't figure out what it was we plugged it plugged it in there was something pressure from the gas tank somewhere so we started to take the car apart and i'm looking at i don't like plastic fuel lines but a lot of cars use them and there was just a hairline crack and oh that's what it was and i replaced that fuel line and with the brass one actually and it's all the fun it went right away and we would have taken us months to find what the problem was so the onboard diagnostics is uh is a pretty cool thing and this is the first year they were mandatory at least in the united states they built about 1166 of these coupes the first year not a whole lot you know it i went to the plant where they were manufactured it was conor's avenue i believe it's the old packard plant in detroit and it really wasn't much bigger than my garage and they had kind of a makeshift viper assembly line there and everybody had viper shirts on and the enthusiasm and the excitement from the men and women working on this project because what was chrysler doing really before the viper just k cars with fake wood on them and the baron convertible you know just just hey we got to make some money let's sell some cars you know and this was a project they really really got a kick out of the fact when i opened the hood you'll see that everybody on the line signed it and i was so honored by that it was pretty cool and their names are still here i'll show you that in a minute but uh as i said this car is completely stock my other viper we put a 377 rear end in it and we change exhaust and this one we've kept pretty much as it left the factory and it's fine it's a great car everything works pretty bulletproof don't have a whole lot of miles on it probably about 11 000 but i use it and it's fun i take it out maybe once a month and it's just a great car let's open the hood and show you what i'm talking about under there you'll see the v10 here's a little piece of automotive trivia for you this front clip i believe is the single most expensive car part at least at the time of manufacture of any american car i think this clip was like 24 000. if you damage this in an accident boy you're screwed but there it is the classic v10 i guess lamborghini did the castings on it was designed in detroit but the castings were done don't forget at that time chrysler owned lamborghini or had a big stake in it and they used their casting techniques to do this block but the car was designed in the states basically uh based basically on a truck engine a big v10 a lot of torque uh and there's all the names there you know it's funny every time i go to detroit to do a show at a casino or something people web hey jay how you doing i'm don right fender what don right fender oh you signed the right phone oh nice to meet you you know and people tell me where they signed on the car so it's kind of cool you can see the names maybe if you maybe you can look at it now if you actually did this put mention in the comment section where you signed it that'd be kind of fun to see but uh it's it's been a fabulous car i mean we've been over the viper history in the other in the other car uh we kind of went over all of that so there's not a lot to explain there but it was really cool to actually go to the plant and see where they built it because it looked like it looked like a hot rod shop basically it's just the enthusiasm of everybody was great they were taking on corvette and they finally had a halo car and because you know back in the early 90s kids were taking down the picture of the lamborghini with the alpine stereo and putting the viper up because it was american it had a lot of horsepower and it was classic american muscle and a sports car and it was a real sports car i mean there's a crudeness about it which is somewhat endearing i think people like that they're strong they're powerful never really had any problems with it the first generation i talked about that in the other video uh we put new pistons and everything while chrysler did under warranty uh because it was a first generation first year you know but by this time they got it down everything works fine and it's nice to have a viper with air conditioning and all those things too no traction troll no abs none of that let's open up the back too i'll show you how that works so cool thing is you you have a viper that you could actually use as a normal car as much as i like my viper uh roadster you couldn't park it anywhere you couldn't lock the doors couldn't even lock the glove compartment from people taking your registration he puts a tonneau cover on it but that's not going to protect anything whereas this one has you know regular ceiling windows the electric that rolled out that was fantastic here let me let me open the i guess the rear hatch there's quite a bit of space you got a full-size spare and if you're an enthusiast who could think who collects paper towels from the 90s well this is a very rare one you see it's quilted so that makes it even more valuable unopened untouched what's it worth today priceless really where you're going to find another one so anyway if you collect these this is the way to go and something else you got back in the 90s we've got a pretty nice viper book uh pretty much standard manual not not as many stupid lawyer warnings as you get today but with the usual ones but you know it's just fun to save all this stuff puts us right back in there oh an extra quarter oil i don't know if soil is any good anymore it's been here all going to start to separate after 25 years but as you see it's a nice shape they did a good job the early vipers were so crude that the fit and finish just got better as they got to these coupes everybody likes this they called this the gurney bubble for dan gurney because dan was tall and we wore a helmet he couldn't so that was to give a little extra headroom that was something they did for the race cars for dan gurney and it has a lot of little touches on it you know i like the racing filler cap and underneath it's a traditional filler cap but it's still kind of cool got these functional vents here that get the heat out this was uh i'd say the mid 90s really the heyday there was so much viper excitement around that it was taken on corvette and it was a little bit more expensive than the corvette but the the saving thing was it had more horsepower and it was a v10 so uh it started a real rivalry between corvette and and uh and viper and you know i think it improved the breed you know i'm one of those people his competition makes both sides stronger because i've said this before the most powerful corvette you could get i think at the time was what 350 horsepower something like that and there's no reason to really up it much more because why you know you didn't need to uh well you had the z06 that came along but i think that was more answered to the to the viper everybody started playing that horsepower game which is fun especially if you're an enthusiast they always want to make a little bit better than the next guy so i think viper and corvette complemented each other i liked it because now there were two real american sports cars now we have three if you count mustang which has really come into its own lately as well but i i just get a kick out of these i like this it's a fun car to drive let's take a look at the interior uh interior a very nice place to be something unique to viper at least the coupes i don't know if the later your uh roadsters had this the seat does not move but the pedals do you reach down here you turn this knob and it moves the pedals forward or backward which is kind of cool uh you've got standard tachometer goes to about fifty five hundred six thousand speedometer 200 mile an hour speedometer uh water temperature oil pressure gas tank uh battery ammeters uh you got a cd player whoo that's the 90s and even has a cigarette lighter look with a real cigarette on it yeah there you go now it's a power plug but back then it was still a cigarette lighter electric windows i guess in door locks too you had of course the uh airbag steering wheel i have my early viper with the pre-airbag steering i don't know there's just something minimalist about it that i enjoy handbrakers right here like a sports car and you got your ashtray right there uh six-speed gearbox these are actually nice cars you can actually go cross country you can drive them you can use them as regular cars because i said it's got an alarm system you can lock it and all that kind of stuff because we've kind of gone over the whole viper story the last time if you want to go back and watch that one with the roadster this is just again the second generation the coupe which i think is was a huge success i think it's just it was a great idea and just a good-looking car you know i remember lutz telling me we were talking about this and he said half the people love the car and half people hate it he says and that's what you want you want a car that gets emotion out of people you know you could design a toyota corolla and people go that's kind of nice it's okay i don't hate it i don't like it you want people to either love it or hate it because the people i hate it are never going to buy it but the people who love it just have to have it and that's sort of the key you know if it's this is never a take it or leave it kind of car maybe maybe not you're either just crazy for this thing or you you can't stand it and uh i was one of those people who was crazy for it come on let's take a next door i can't believe this car is 25 years old and i don't know why that just seems so it goes by so quickly it's amazing yet very competent automobile fast handles nicely you know no you can do burnouts with it you can hang the tail out a little bit i mean it's uh it's a great car these are a lot of fun i was sorry to see the viper run its course you know i think it just got so expensive by the end they were something like uh 125 130 000 or something like that it just got too expensive especially it could be against the corvette i mean the corvette they have got that down i mean the fact that you can buy a c8 for 60 000 i mean that's that's pretty unbelievable i mean you can you can you can't restore a car for that these days i mean so it's pretty amazing i think the viper will come back in some form i think it's too valuable in name and you know too legendary a car but there's enough around so they become collectors items and they hold their value pretty well i mean i think these coupes probably go in the 40 to 65 000 range something like that and i mean i love this v10 it just pulls so strong and as much as i love my viper road so you can't go anywhere with it you always have to park it like if you're in a restaurant like okay can i see my car from the table you know somebody's touching it somebody's yeah it's always somebody fooling with it at least this you can lock it and walk away and that's one thing i always liked about chrysler you get vast amounts of horsepower at a reasonable price like the demon okay 80 000 is a tremendous amount of money but to get that kind of horsepower and something european you're up in the hundreds of thousands of dollar range you know you're looking at i know veerons and just crazy money ferraris and lamborghinis and all that kind of stuff and the fact you can get that kind of horsepower and that kind of speed is uh one of those american egalitarian things you know horsepower for the masses that kind of deal and these make wonderful used cars you know the nice thing about vipers is especially the roadsters uh for most people they were a weekend car so they didn't rack up a lot of miles not many people commuted to work every day in a viper although i'm sure plenty did so you see them 25 30 years old with 8 000 miles 10 000 miles like mine you know mines are mine was a collector car from day one i put it in the garage and i take it out and use it sparingly on nice days in fact my black viper i don't believe except getting caught in the rain once has never really been wet that's why the paint everything looks so good on i guess this is what chrysler would call a halo car anybody call a halo car meaning it helps to sell other cars you know the vipers brought people into the showrooms and they wound up buying a minivan or a baron or something uh and that's okay they didn't make a whole lot of vipers but um their impact was significant i mean i think it really captured the imagination of the american muscle car enthusiasts because there really wasn't much around in the mid 90s corvette was about all you had mustang was good it was okay but it was not outrageous you know uh when this came out with 450 horsepower it was a bit like the demon with 800 horsepower you just went what but the car has presence i love the style of it i think you can park this among a group of your european exotics and not be embarrassed and although sometimes the european car magazines can be a little uh snobby about about american stuff i find that people are not you know when i got it's almost 20 years ago i took a corvette on the autobahn and everywhere we stopped wow crowds would gather around people thought it was the coolest car and i'm thinking it's just a corvette but it made quite an impression i love looking over that long hood where it kind of just drops off and you know i like about cars in this period when i turn on the radio i just turn it on the volume is either up or down i hate modern cars where you have to hold the button and go are you happy with selection yes how happy are you very would you choose this station again yes i would shut up just let me drive the car some nice touches you got this overhead thing here where you can keep uh your garage door opener or other thing oh it's a six dollar bill somebody put in there as a gang and what is this a parking garage yeah you got interior lights look at that yeah good don't get that in the roadster you know i like keeping something like this stock and because you know i've got plenty of cars that have more than 450 horsepower it's just nice to have this exactly as it was from the factory i think it makes it the most valuable because so many people screw with them people forget what it was like when they were new i'm sure there's probably a better quick shifter you could put in it but this one's okay i can live with it it's pretty flattering to beat brock you know he designed the daytona coupe and this basically is what this is it's a modern interpretation of that you know with the camp back tail and all that kind of stuff as i said before the seats are fixed but the steering wheel actually is adjustable and the pedals are adjustable so it's six and one half dozen the other one thing american manufacturers do way better than the europeans is uh heating and air conditioning i mean i've got this air conditioner on you can't even hear it and it's plenty cold inside here it's about 100 degrees here today in that line and yet it's fine like i always say horsepower sells cars torque wins races and this is got a lot of torque hope you enjoyed this drive with the gts coupe they're quite civilized they're great cars they make great used cars i highly recommend this and the viper club is terrific i mean there's every possible uh question you could have about them these guys men and women actually of the club can help you out they do it's really good you know i got to host one of the viper international things in vegas one year and it was a lot of fun just meeting all the viper owners and seeing the modifications they've done to their car i pick up a lot of good tips so anyway if you're thinking to get one of these you can't go wrong and uh we'll see you next week with uh something else hopefully you'll find it all right you guys [Music] foreign

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 542,689

Rating: 4.9558096 out of 5

Keywords: Jay, Lenos, Garage, Dodge, Viper, GTS, Bob Lutz, Detroit, Michigan, American cars, muscle, car porn, car enthusiasts, Lamborghini, pandemic edition, coupe, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, Dodge Viper GTS, Dodge Viper, Viper GTS, 1996 Dodge Viper, 1st generation viper, 1996 Dodge Viper GTS, JLG, JL garage, dodge viper jay leno, jay leno cars, jay leno dodge

Id: slQVERzykeY

Length: 21min 56sec (1316 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 12 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/LuciusVarinus]

Still looks good after all these years.

[u/Animae_Partus_II]

It's crazy how good every single generation of the Viper looks, even today.

[u/emponator]

If I win in the lottery, this car would make into my 10 car garage.