Wednesday 28th September 2011

Video: Viper ACR's Rapid 'Ring Time

Ride on board a Dodge Viper ACR for a 7m 12s Nordschleife run

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Dodge has released an official video of its latest Nurburgring record that is, er, not a record (because there is no such thing), confirming our recent story that Dodge had taken a 2010 Viper ACR around the Nordschleife in 7mins 12secs.

"We're extremely proud to set the lap record (It's not a record! - Ed) for a second time at the famed Nürburgring Nordschleife," said Dodge boss Ralph Gilles. "Our team returned to Germany knowing we'd left some time on the track when we set our first lap record, so this effort shows the incredible depth and capability the Viper ACR has by running a full 10 seconds faster than we did in 2008."

In fairness to Mr Gilles and the Dodge crew, it is a pretty impressive time. So should we mention that it's still a good fourteen seconds off the time set by the Radical SR8LM back in 2009? Nah, probably not...

 

[Ved]

I still find it hard to really raise much of an eyebrow to these records. When it was things like the Skylines, NSX and Porsches you knew they were proper roadcars that were focused on performance in an every-day guise.

The Viper, Radical and I suppose to a large degree the GT2 and GT3 911's are just setting records for the fastest track focused car with a tax disc going around a track that looks like a road.

Great cars and while I can bow to their technical achievements, I have zero connection with them because they just aren't roadcars to me in the traditional sense.

Out of interest, if I wanted to spend 40k on a car with 4 usable seats, with a roof and all mod-cons, what would be the fastest around the ring?