I drove one at Road America, which I think is one of the best road race tracks in America. The owner usually had me driving Corvettes or Camaros so this took me by surprise. It was not in the racing class due to engine size but they have open classes where you can race what you brought on the track for a few laps. the regulars and high dollar racers get a lot more laps. So I had most of the day to play with this thing. He wanted a full written report on what I thought of it. That is the price you pay for getting paid to do what you love!! The car was definitely fast, not fast enough to beat the Vettes and Camaros and Mustangs. It is a heavy car and handling is "different". It is not bad, it is just different. Most of that is die to the monstrous torque the engine puts out at relatively low rpm. Where I am usually rolling into the throttle halfway through the turn and I am at full throttle as I exit the turn this thing is drifting two thirds through! That takes a lot of getting used to. What I found was because I could not come out of the turns as fast as I normally would I was trying to make it up in the straight which it did quite well but then you had to haul it down going into the next turn and as I said it is a heavy car and if you are coming into a hairpin you are going from150 to 40 in a really short space. I think that is why they never really took off in road racing, Too much of a change I never drove it on the street but talking to a lot of people that have them they are a blast for drifting and burnouts in driving style to make it work. Basically they are good for turning good tires into bad tires very quickly.
But I saw in Haggerty I think it was there is a guy who has 25 or 30 of them. Every color of every model made for every year it was made!! Now THAT is dedication to a car, AND a LOT of disposable income.
This is the guy I was talking about above.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/market...-bill-blewett/
But I found this one while looking for that article I found this one, 80 Vipers! And all driven regularly.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ollection.html