The Viper: It's a car, it's a halo, it's a lifeboat

-- April 30, 2012 - 12:01 am ET

To Ralph Gilles, the 2013 SRT Viper isn't just a halo car. It's a morale
lifeboat.

Gilles, head of Chrysler's SRT brand and the company's design chief, says
working on the 640-hp Viper, which is scheduled to go on sale late this
year, carried Chrysler's design team through the darkest days of the
company's 2009 bankruptcy.

"It was done in the darkest hour you could imagine," Gilles told an audience
in Detroit last week. "I threw this project to the designers to keep them
motivated."

The Viper, which was unveiled this month at the New York auto show, will be
built at Chrysler's Conner Avenue plant in Detroit, which built the last
Viper in 2010.