In terms of a street brawl the Viper ACR is like a heavyweight boxer with a deadly punch

It’s the gripping, forceful knot in your stomach when you’re on the edge of mechanical adhesion and about to lose traction that’s most memorable.

That feeling of knowing you’re going to get into trouble if you don’t act now. It is known as fear. And fear is something you tend to feel behind the wheel of the Dodge Viper ACR.

It’s not a nice feeling; danger is closer than usual and you can almost feel the damage you’re about to do to yourself. But thrill and adrenaline is something humans tend to enjoy, and it all comes from a simple formula of taking one standard Viper, putting it on a weight-saving program and throwing as much high-grade racing components as a reasonable budget and everyday road conditions would allow. What you end up with is something that’s about to knock out a Lamborghini Murcielago. It’s mean, that’s for sure. In terms of a street brawl, the Lambo is like a thug with a knife, and the ACR a heavyweight boxer with a deadly punch.

But then 600 horsepower was always going to be brutal. The Americans’ take on a good car was never in line with that of the Europeans, or the Japanese. ‘Speed rules,’ they say. ‘Let those God-damn Euros and Japs do their thing, we get more horses out of automobiles than all of them. We can hit them where it hurts.’ And what about the rest of the car – handling, safety? ‘Forget the rest.’

How long this will remain the case isn’t exactly clear. The Cadillac CTS-V  might be the beginning of a trend of powerful cars that are more than just one-trick ponies, but we’re yet to see if it’s all a singular high or a new age of American car makers trying to bridge the gap to ‘those damn Europeans with their small-engined cars’.

I won’t, however, tarnish this 325kph beast with the same brush. That would be unfair. Especially as it’s made with as focused a recipe as the one Street and Racing Technology – Chrysler’s sporting arm – had created.

Before the ACR – shorthand for American Club Racer – was created, budgets at the SRT department were low. Adding extra horsepower was going to cost the company heavily, so the 600bhp had to be left alone. To make the Viper faster, they stuck to the old technique of reducing the weight of everything and working on what remains.

To start with, unsprung weight was slashed by 27kg by using forged alloy wheels. Using new two-piece brake callipers reduced a further 27kg. For suspension, the SRT men brought in race-spec 14-way adjustable KW shock absorbers and stiffer anti-roll bars. Then, to make sure it stuck to the ground, Michelin Pilot Sport Cups (basically slicks with a few cuts in them) were fitted and a carbon fibre aerodynamic package was added all round to complete the project. In the words of Herb Helbig, director of the SRT division, ‘We have to consider this car as an urban weapon. It’s not a grocery getter.’ That may be true, but not for the obvious reasons of commuting practicalities.

For a start, the pedals have been set in a very interesting way; they’re adjustable, but are offset to the left, and each pedal is set at different heights with the clutch being closest to you, with the brake pedal further back and the accelerator further still. The steering wheel is also slightly to the right of where it should be.

Then you have the rest of the interior, which is lavished in plastic. Every moving part, from the air vents to the indicator stalks has a strange resistance to it and feels like it’s going to fall off at any moment. Quality obviously wasn’t on the priority list for the SRT engineers. The Viper may have been first produced 17 years ago, but if the interior has changed at all, then I haven’t noticed.

‘At over 3000rpm it catapults into the road ahead in one long delivery - all accompanied by that ferocious V10.’

It’s also pretty cramped inside. With the visibility restricted and little headroom, you feel cocooned. There’s space between you and the passenger thanks to the large transmission tunnel, but that’s about it. There’s a standard three-point seatbelt, but only because owners of previous ACRs replaced the car’s seat harness with their own preferred brand. Anyway, every Viper has mountings for a five-point harness. Beside you sits the meaty gearlever that runs through a box which uses a twin-plate clutch. Its feel is far from accurate; you need a strong and well-judged hand to engage gears cleanly. Be forceful and don’t rush, and it’ll eventually go in – even though second can be a bit of a struggle sometimes. One look at the 220mph (354kph) odometer though, is enough to make you forget about the interior and the gearbox. Besides, who cares about the details when you have 600bhp, 560lb ft of torque and a machine that holds the production car Nürburgring Nordschleife record of 7m22sec, all for less than $ 100k?

Twist the cheap key, press the cheap red starter button, and the massive 8.4-litre V10 explodes into life, shaking all your organs. It then settles down, becomes lazy, barely wanting to work, as if it’s firing a cylinder only when it feels like it. But the power is there, you can just sense it. The thought of piloting it around town on a Friday morning in first and second gears makes me laugh to myself. This is going to be quite an entertaining drive.

In town, it requires some attention. Reversing is an issue and trying to see what’s in your rear three-quarter vision is difficult; you always end up thinking there’s something there when you look to the side and have that wing in the corner of your eye. Bad surfaces aren’t absorbed lightly and bumps make the whole car bounce up and down. The only positive note here is that the usability of that huge engine means it’s quite happy to potter along on small throttle openings doing very little revs. Even at 120kph it’s turning over at less than 1500rpm.

It’s around this mark that things begin to get interesting. Fast and wide sweeping roads are the home of the ACR, and when I finally get out of the clogged up inner-city streets and get a chance to floor the throttle, the result is incredible. At anything over 3000rpm the Viper ACR simply catapults into the road ahead. It’s one long delivery and the power just keeps coming, accompanied by that ferocious and ferociously loud V10. The tall gears and the fact that the engine note doesn’t seem to change much with speed means you won’t manage to draw another breath before you’re doing 200. Push it a bit harder and your comfort zone suddenly begins to reach an end. My trust in the car’s stability started to decrease and I suddenly found myself wiping a small bead of sweat off my brow. Good thing the brakes  are as sharp as anything. Make no mistake, the Viper ACR is visceral.

If straight-line performance was to be expected, cornering is quite a surprise. The steering feel isn’t as good as you’d like it to be and you feel like you’re steering a large ship, but it’s responsive enough. Through fast bends it feels stable, and as the cornering forces build up, you begin to wonder how far it’ll go before it breaks traction. Grip levels are high. So high in fact, that you’re never likely to reach the limit. The standard Viper generates 45kg of downforce at 250kph, but the ACR makes 450kg. That’s the result of endless nights spent in the Chrysler wind tunnel perfecting the shape of the rear wing and the side planes.

Beyond the limits, it’s all about the size of your manhood. You have to be truly brave to go beyond the car’s grip – I certainly wasn’t, that’s why it instilled a certain fear in me. You’re not surprised when you have to make a few corrections as you’re thrusted out of corners, but when you’ve straightened up the nose and the rear wheels are still struggling with traction, it becomes a bit of a heart-stopping moment. You learn to be wary - especially as there are no stability or traction control aids here. I doubt that even adjusting that wing to its maximum setting will improve things.

So what about when you build up speed, when corners are taken at fourth or even fifth gear? The truth is Viper engineers say it can maintain 1.5G of lateral grip, but, well… I wasn’t really prepared to test that claim.

If you’re prepared to see the full extent of the ACR however, and still want more, you can specify the ‘lighter’ package - that gets rid of 18kg by doing away with the stereo, all sound insulation, carpeting in the boot and the emergency tyre pump, and adds a lap timer together with carbon fibre door panels. Small details, but then every bit matters on a track.

It really takes some getting used to, this third-generation ACR. Cruising along feels like you have a whole nuclear bomb under your right foot ready to be set off at any moment; it’s outrageously fast and ludicrously noisy. You also have the shoddy quality to get used to; but then its price tag is quite low compared to the cost of 600bhp these days...

It is tempting though. In the world of politically correct electronic safety systems, the ACR has got to be one of the most rebellious and animalistic machines around. It might not be a super car, but it is a supercar. People still take a second and third look (funny when you think that the essential design came from a 1989 Detroit show concept). It also rewards and frustrates in equal measure; you want to get to know what it’s made of, but you just can’t. A good blast every Saturday is probably sufficient to give you enough adrenaline for the rest of the week. All of this is precisely what gives it its character, and unless your name is Kimi Räikkönen or Lewis Hamilton, you’re unlikely to ever get bored of it.

‘It has got to be one of the most rebellious and animalistic machines around.’

In pure numbers, the extra $ 12,050 you have to find for the ACR over a standard Viper, gains you two or three second on the average race track. Yet the ACR, is more than just numbers. It’s the noise, the acceleration, the neck-twisting cornering and the solid deceleration that means you have to realign your senses. The whole experience is raw. I have to admit, I couldn’t help feeling a little intimidated by the ACR. But this is all insignificant. I really don’t care – I love this thing.

	Dodge Viper ACR
Engine	V10
Location	Front, longitudinal
Displacement	8354cc
Max power	600bhp @ 6100rpm
Max torque	650lb ft @ 5000rpm
Transmission	Six-speed manual gearbox,, rear-wheel drive, limited-slip differential
Weight (kerb)	1552kg
Power-to-weight	702bhp/ton
0-100kph	3.2sec (claimed)
Top speed	327kph (claimed)
Basic price	$ 98,810
EVO Rating	4 ½ stars