Jay Leno loves two things: jean shirts and cars. Being an American, he has a soft spot for homemade models, especially those with a powerful engine under their hood.
One of them is the Viper. Leno already owns two of Chrysler’s flagship sports cars, having brought the original way back in 1992 and then, since he wanted a coupe, a GTS as well.
In the 20 years that passed, Leno’s hair greyed out but he still loves denim shirts and Vipers. So, his latest video features not one, but three brand-new 2013 SRT Vipers: a stock model with the vinyl dashboard, cloth seats, a hood with six vents and a simpler, two-mode stability control and two GTS models.
The interesting part is that SRT boss Ralph Gilles not only showed up to walk the TV host around the Viper, but he did so after driving 5,000 miles from Detroit to California through Florida in one of the cars.
He then let Leno sample the 640HP new Viper on the street to find out whether its “axe-murderer” character has been tamed in spite of gaining 60 percent more horsepower than the original and, of course, burn some rubber. He then took it himself on the track at Willow Springs, as you can see in the video that follows the break.
By Andrew Tsaousis
VIDEO