Have you ever seen a daily-driven Dodge Viper? I hadn’t either until yesterday when, in Santa Monica, California, I stumbled upon the roughest roadworthy supercar I’ve ever seen. Here’s a look at this beat-to-hell first-generation Dodge Viper, whose owner I have a deep respect for.
A major downside of supercars is that they’re typically too impractical and valuable to drive each day, which is a shame because they’re such a joy to whip around. The owner of this Dodge Viper that I spotted last night, though, clearly lives by their own rules, as the rough shape of the supercar makes it clear that this thing is a daily driver and not a garage queen.
I actually spotted this Viper shortly after seeing a mint condition 20-year-old Honda CR-V, leading me to wonder if I’m living in some kind of alternate universe. And an amazing alternate universe, because for years I have lamented how important, high-volume cars for the masses are rarely preserved while less culturally important sports cars that are awesome to drive are rarely driven.
The owner of this Viper gets it:
It’s a first-gen Viper that I spotted in a Santa Monica parking garage, and right away I noticed a bit of a “cateye” — the fiberglass hood had cracked in such a way that it appeared to add a little taper to the outside of one of the Viper’s headlights.
Those headlights, by the way, are thoroughly faded, and they don’t seem to fit quite right in their housings (which by the way, are surrounded by plenty of just-not-quite-right touch-up paint):
There was quite a bit of this not-quite-a-color-match touch-up paint, in part, because this Viper is covered in scrapes and bruises and cracks. And I mean covered:
The passenger’s side of the front bumper has been through some stuff, and much of the turn signal lens just isn’t present:
Here’s some not-quite-right touch-up paint on the front right “fender”:
Here are some scuffs that appear to be either from a black car’s bumper or from a tire:
The mirrors are thoroughly scratched:
The rear trunk lid has a big touched-up crack in it:
The passenger’s side exhaust appears to have hit something, with the surrounding black paint thoroughly scuffed:
And I’m not entirely sure what’s going on near the front of the driver’s side exhaust pipe — did it melt the surrounding trim? Is that what’s going on here? Why is all this white?
The paint’s clearcoat is peeling:
And each rather filthy wheel has had its fair share of curb run-ins:
Then there’s the interior, whose seats are covered in duct tape and whose speakers are missing their grilles:
This Viper, outfitted with dealer plates, is possibly the most amazing Viper I’ve ever seen. It’s actually being driven, like the car-gods intended. Is this owner probably having to make major compromises just to get around? Sure. There’s not a lot of room in a Viper. Is the vehicle worth a lot less than if it had been stored in a garage? Definitely.
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But a garage queen is just artwork, and a daily driver is an actual car. Much respect to whoever this is who has decided they want their supercar to be an actual car.
 
 
David – tell me you got the VIN. We need someone with a free Carfax account to run the history on this. It will either be chock full of interesting tidbits or completely empty. No in-between.
Ha, reminds me of my first car. Got a 1960 Maserati 3500 GT convertible. It was in really great mechanical condition, but somebody had stolen the windows and door handles , (replaced with late 60s ford door handles!), the paint was like chalk. The interior looked like it had been parked in the rain with the top off. The tires it needed cost as much as the car did, but it was a glorious thing to drive. It was arguably the first supercar, but nobody wanted old Maseratis or Ferraris back then and they were dirt cheap.
I wonder whatever happened to it. It looked exactly like the one George Clooney is posing with and those Omega watch ads except beat to shit.
Having driven the Viper that my otherwise Corvette-obsessed uncle owned for a minute, I admire the dedication of anyone who would drive one of these enough to get it into this state. Respect.
Though it always amazes me when expensive cars are allowed to get so derelict. How many owners has this poor thing had?
That’s not driven, that’s abused. Some inbred lowlife beat up his wife but she wouldn’t shut the hell up so she had it coming. Why do you make me hit you?
Previous owners were getting it ready for off-road conversion; don’t believe me?
Look up Superfast Matt on youtube.
Honestly it has held up better than other 90’s-era Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth vehicles.
When was the last time you saw normal daily Mopar cars like an Intrepid, Neon, LHS, etc. I haven’t seen any of those in ages and assume they have returned to the earth.
There’s a lot of them where I live. LHSes, LeBarons, Neons, Durangos, Caravans, 300Ms… There’s two Dodge Stealths lurking around in various parking lots throughout the day. About the only thing missing are the “cloud” cars, and I’m sure that’s because the drivetrains fell apart.
Where do you live? Because even here in God’s Waiting Room, FL, where everything 90’s goes to die with their elderly last owners, Chrysler products of that era are so rare that my head snaps around like I have seen a Bugatti Veyron.
Where I am from in Maine, it was a race between the rust and the mechanicals dying.
It should be noted that this Viper is approximately 30 years old. Based on the hood design, wheels, sidepipes and the lack of exterior door handles, it is a 1995 model year or older. Having said that, the more ordinary 90’s Mopars were probably scrapped when needed repairs cost more than the car was worth, rather than the point at which the car was totally worn out or rusted out. Even in the current condition, this Viper is probably worth at least $15-20k.
I think this thing was crashed and repaired multiple times. The front bumper looks like it was put back on after the thing ran over a sidewalk curb and the rear and sides show the same kind of damage that would occur if the car spun out and ended up in a ditch or rolling through brush backwards.
This wasn’t daily driven. Somebody tried to kill this car. More than once.
Im 99% sure this is the same car Kristen Lee wrote a story about on The Old Site.
I’ll echo some other comments.. this has gone past the admirable daily usage and verges on neglect. I love the fact it’s been used and continues to be but damn man, at least wipe the thing down and buy some seat covers.
I love the dings, scratches and chips but even a 10 minute hit wish a hose, sponge and tire shine would make this thing INFINITELY cooler.
Is it driven by a courier ?
This goes beyond daily driver use and crosses over into straight-up neglect. I have a 30 year old BMW and it’s in far nicer shape than this, with decent paint, no major body damage, clean wheels, etc. You can daily drive a car without beating the crap out of it.
I drive a 20 year old Camry that was sandblasted by a hurricane before I got it. It’s got 230k miles and I’m a rotund dude with an addiction to janky taco trucks and no sense of pride when it comes to what I own.
And my Camry is dramatically better condition than this Viper. Heck, even the bumpers have less damage than this Viper.
This vehicle isn’t daily driven, but regularly abused. I’m just shocked it isn’t on blocks outside a doublewide.
This makes my 21 year old daily driver Civic look like a garage queen, this isn’t daily driver abuse, this Viper has seen some serious shit.
That’s about the condition most cars I buy are in. Somewhere out there is a C8 Corvette that someone is beating the crap out of, and in 20 years it will be mine.
I would buy this, put some cheap-ass Recaro knock-off racing seat in it with some belts, and track the ever-living fuck out of it. If you slide it into a wall or spin all the mains who gives a shit. Leave it there for the track workers to sort out.
Not quite the same but I knew a guy in the early 00’s who had about 220K on his NSX. He drove the thing back and forth between multiple states, constantly.
I appreciate the sentiment of this article, I really do, but “daily driver” doesn’t necessarily mean “treated like shit”. You can drive a car every day and not, for example, scrape your rims on every curb in existence.
Especially not the rims of your old valuable high performance car.