Used Car of the Day: 2005 Dodge Viper

by Tim Healey

Published: April 6th, 2023

We haven't featured Dodge Vipers in the space often, for a variety of reasons, but it's always cool when one comes up for sale.

This 2005 Dodge Viper is Race Yellow and it's on its second owner.

The car has 35,000 miles and change on the clock and the seller is asking $54,000 for it. The seller claims the car is in good condition save for some minor exterior issues, such as paint chips from normal driving and underbody scrapes from driveway entries.

This Viper appears to be stock, including in terms of navigation and radio, save for a Corsa exhaust. The seller claims the car was never raced and that the tires and battery are new.

Check it out here.

[Images: Seller]

Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.

#DodgeViper #2005DodgeViper #UCOTD #Dodge #UsedCaroftheDay #Viper

Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

More by Tim Healey

Comments

Join the conversation

9 of 12 comments

28-Cars-Later on Apr 06, 2023

This is probably worth consideration. Although I am not personally in touch with the market for these, a dear friend picked up a '94 last summer under 20K otc for 44 and change - and the first generation has a removable hard top only in lieu of true convertible while also being totally impractical as a DD. This one can at least put its roof back up if you're out and about and rain appears.
Another fun fact about these I learned is the tires are some odd size which only exists for Vipers (on the gen 1 at least) and thus they are pricey as can be. If I recall it was something like they were hand made custom orders or something to this effect, so good tires actually are a real selling point vs saving you a few hundred bucks.

3 Reply
- See 5 previous
- Ajla on Apr 06, 2023
  
  On Tirerack they only have one brand of street tires listed for the '05 and they are shown as not in stock until September.
  
  1
- Redapple2 on Apr 07, 2023
  
  I cant imagine owning a car with rare, near impossible to get tires. With this in mind all the time, the weekend car would get even less use.
  
  Like
- FreedMike on Apr 07, 2023
  
  Wow, I hadn’t even considered the tire issue. Talk about First World Problems…
  
  Like
- SCE to AUX on Apr 07, 2023
  
  Hard-to-find tires - I didn't know that. This was a problem for 79 Mustang TRX metric wheels, and BMW i3 EVs, also.
  
  Like
- 28-Cars-Later on Apr 07, 2023
  
  @all
  
  I would have never thought tires would be an issue either, evidently neither did my friend until he was told this by the previous owner.
  
  @redapple
  
  I think he's put 200 miles on it in the past nine months. The gen 1 is about two steps from a prototype, it's literally aimed to be a car you leave from your garage and then return the same day. No ABS, A/C, no airbag, no outside door handles or door windows (top and windows physically attach separately, its not really intended to have them).
  
  As much as DD isn't my favorite (my friend's looks identical):
  
  y_outube.com/watch?v=mZ8rhpxVpqs
  
  Like
- MaintenanceCosts on Apr 09, 2023
  
  You can get Michelin Pilot Sport 4S today in the correct front tire size and only 10 mm wider than stock in the rear. It'll freak out the purists but it will fit and work fine.
  
  Like
MaintenanceCosts on Apr 09, 2023

Corsa exhaust? The V10's ugly UPS-truck sound is the worst thing about the Vipers that came with roofs from the factory. Why make it louder?

Like Reply
- 2ACL on Apr 09, 2023
  
  If I ever spot the Viper I rode alongside two days ago, I'll be sure to ask its owner. I don't know what kind of exhaust he had, but I'm familiar enough with Vipers to know that it wasn't stock. From idle to ~45 mph, it emitted the most godawful sound I've heard of any vehicle seemingly in good mechanical condition.
  
  Like

Recent Comments

28-Cars-Later Let's review Ol' Joe's earlier thoughts on the matterTrump doesn’t get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.The cashiers at Target see what’s going on – they know more about economics than Trump. #TeamJoe 1:59 PM · Jun 11, 2019I think the cashiers may also know more about managing the presidency too Joe. What is it you do again?
28-Cars-Later So the company whose BEVs are without proven lifespan and mired in recalls wants to further cheapen materials and mfg costs of the very same thing they already cannot sell? I don't know if Ford is going to still exist in 2030 (assuming the nation still does of course).
Fred We want our manufacturing to pay good wages, provide healthcare, not pollute and provide a safe workplace. Many places around the world don't, so we put a tariff on them to force them. That's the way it should be, but I'm afraid this is just a political move by Biden to take away one of Trump's talking points.
Orange260z Modern Cadillac sedans look and drive great. Yeah, the interior materials aren't quite as good as the competition, but if they undercut them in price it can offset. IMHO, they need to step up in a big way on their warranty, service and customer service. H/K/G shows confidence in the quality of the product by offering long standard B2B warranties and low-cost exclusionary extensions. My Caddy became a money pit after the warranty with only 75K kms; yes, the Germans do that, but they have the established cachet that they get away with it. They need to make sure that their cars still look good after 10 years (i.e. no trim issues, no undercarriage rust issues, etc) - my CTS was all rusty underneath after two years, they told me that was acceptable and not under warranty. Cadillac needs to do more.In Canada, there are few (if any) standalone Cadillac dealerships; they are typically co-located with all the other (remaining) GM brands. However, this doesn't have to be a kiss of death - Lexus successfully built their rep despite co-location, by investing in dedicated Lexus sales areas, sales people, service advisors, technicians, lounge areas with private offices, perks (free coffee/treats, car wash and vacuum with any service, a large complimentary Lexus loaner fleet available for any service visit), etc. By contrast, for Cadillac service I would line up with the 20 other people waiting for one of 5-7 service writers that know nothing about my car because they service 10,000 different GM models, answering a question about maintenance requirements "How am I supposed to know?". During the first 4 years I had access to complimentary Enterprise rental cars as loaners, but I had to spend 20-30 mins going through a car rental process every time. The guy who would do complimentary service washes did so with a big scrub brush he just used to wash a work truck that was covered in mud. They can't sell a premium car with crappy service like that, they have to be better than their competition.If it weren't for these issues I would not have hesitated to buy a new CT5 V-sport (winter DD, want AWD). I bought a G70 instead, we'll see how that goes - but at least I have a long B2B warranty.
Jalop1991 Are tariffs the right answer? Ask China and Japan. They've imposed lots of protectionist tariffs over the years, but somehow our doing so is horrible or something like that.Let's do the Japanese inspection to the Chinese junk imports, and make the Chinese pay for them.BYD--now available at Walmart and Amazon.