Originally Posted by
Coventrysucks
The current Viper coupe has already been successful in the FIA GT3 series.
The Lotus is worth roughly 1/3 of the Viper, the whole premise of the car is that it is a light, cheap sports car - hence the lack of equipment and engines from small hatchbacks.
You wouldn't expect the highest quality from something that is not supposed to be of particularly high quality anyway.
Amidst all of that "low quality" aluminium and alcantara, Lotus - a small company with limited budget - can still provide an interior that has at least some aesthetic appeal, and that has rare options such as "different colours", as opposed to Dodge - part of one of the world's biggest car companies, and with access to a much greater range of R&D, suppliers and designers - that offers genuine leather-effect vinyl, with some genuine plastic-effect plastic trim in either black, black or black with dials and switches scatter-gunned at the IP.
You deride the idea that a sports car must have the nicest interior possible, and I agree - it doesn't have to be stunning, but at the same stroke there is no need for the interior to be utterly hopeless.
All things being equal in terms of weight, functionality and cost, who wouldn't rather have nicer materials and layout, considering that 90% of your time with the car will be spent inside?
Why impress everyone else with the car's "bad-ass" exterior design whilst you suffer with a "sweaty-ass" caused by your lovely black leatherette-effect seats?
Why should you have to "put up" with anything on any $85,000+ car, let alone something like this?
There is no reason why the Viper could not have had a nice interior if they had even put an ounce of effort into it, especially considering its price and aspirations as a supercar rival.
There are no end of cars available that cost significantly less than the Viper and yet they have very high quality interiors by way of materials and aesthetics - so it is clearly not impossible - it is just laziness.
This apparent slip-shod approach by its creators is one of the main reasons that I have no interest in the Viper at all, aside from a respect for the full-on GT versions - the only versions that live up to their potential.
It does nothing new or interesting, and the only reason for its existence seems to be that Dodge needs a "sports car" in the range, and had the Viper template from before, so it was easier to re-hash that than come up with a better idea.
The cars that impress me are the ones that don't appear to have been completed in someone's coffee break, but the ones where it is apparent that someone cared, and both thought and worked very hard at making something the best it could be.
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