personally, rangeredge, if you are talkin stock for stock that it will me up to the driver, i'll have to go ahead and disagree with ya, 12.9 vs a high 13 second truck i know of you guys can a pull a 13.6 stock, but the ram if it it comes out the way they tell us will probably win, to me, i cant believe dodge is doin this, puttin a viper engine in a truck, 500 of performance, its absolutely crazy, i dont see any other companies ford or gm really goin that all out, if ford was to come out with a 500 hp truck first, i wouldnt think that any company would try exceeding that, its almost goin over board, by the time every company tries beating the other, the price will be outrageous and dont know how many people will buy it, thats just my opinion, i dont think that ford will make that l with more hp than that ram but i could see ford makin the L with pretty close to that though, same with gm

 

Zeus Lightning,

My local news paper is the Windsor Star. The people there are not the brightest but they are all we got. I tried scanning the article but it was not very good. Then Ii tried a search and found the Windsor star on the net. Here is the link.

http://www.southam.com/windsorstar/w...109/41671.html

Regards

Jean Marc Chartier

 

As the title says, Im really glad to see this subject on the L board. As you might have guessed, Im a Dodge guy, and Im not here to flame anyone. Most of us have at least one thing in common, we dont like Chevys!

Anyway, Im glad to see the Dodge SRT-10 making waves in the Ford L camp, I can tell you its making waves in the Dodge camp as well! I just hope the build it like it is, and not make another VTS out of it.

And not to get anyones proverbial panties in a bunch, but like was mentioned, Dodge started this 'fast truck craze" back in the late 70s with the Little Red Expresses and the Warlock which were faster than all the cars made that year from the factory. The current 'craze' was also reignited by Dodge again in 1994 w/ the introduction of the VTS which "came to life" in 1996 as the detuned, yet still quite quick, Indy 500 pace truck (soon followed by the 97/98 SS/T). It was close to the fastest production truck of the day, running low 15 second 1/4s was fast for the day, for a truck. (of course some of this is my opinion, but after the Indy ram the sport truck scene just took off, and EVERYONE had to have stripes!)

If anyone will make this truck, Dodge will be the one to do it! Just look at the recent history of Dodge concept to production vehicles. Dodge has the reputation of bringing concept to reality more than any other car manufacturer in the market today! Yes, the lightening is great, fast, and beautiful, but the reputation of Ford and concept cars is that concept cars stay just that... concepts. (yes, the thunderbird the the exception, but just by a month or two. Chevy is the same way, with their exception being the SSR).

Anyway, Im not trying to start a fight at all! Im just saying thanks for being as interested as I am! (except for all the Dodge flames!) And thanks for the debate, its interesting! If they do build it, Ill see you all at the dealership... but of course you will be behind me!

later.....

Clay

 

Sorry I just dont belive that ANYTHING with 500 HP can be sold for a profit at $20,000 as stated in that magazine....

As I have said before so many times ... Il believe it when I see it .....

If they really are Viper engined trucks for $20k Ill probably buy one...

Who wouldnt ?

Doug

PS Sweet and low - The Gen1 Lightning was made in 93 and on the street in 93 which predates the 94 Dodge you mention by 3 years.

 

i won't..... not one anyway

 

It's gonna be fun watching SRT-10 guys trying to get traction at the race track when it comes out.

 

Wow...gone all day and 6 more pages piled up!

Anyway...just got back from the auto show and I saw the dodge. Great looking truck. The paint is incredible (but prolly won't make production).

Only things I didn't like about it were the seats (basically a bench...no lateral support at all), the shifter was too low...down at your shins, and the styling while good, doesn't quite have the go fast sport truck look that the Lightning has. Maybe it needs a flareside.

 

I think the poster confused the new Neon's price with new Dodge Ram price. No way a truck like that can be sold for $20,000. That would gut most of Dodge's exisiting line-up.

Even Dakota clubcab is listed at $18,000 and it's a 2.5 liter barely putting out 120 HP. No way that additional 380 can be purchased for $2,000. Heck, L makes 380 HP and most people here put down $30K for them horses.

Like I said, a $20,000 performance monster like that will absolutely gut most of Dodge's lineup. It'd be a viable option for people looking for anything other than a mini-van. That means the truck will cut into sales of a lot of carsand trucks, across the board, with possible exceptions being mini-vans and the Vipers.

Cars make a lot of money to make, in designing and implementing. Each model (although many share identical parts) still have to be designed and manufacturered, and you need a certain volume of sales per model to justify the existence of that model. If the new $20,000 Ram cuts into sales of just about every other model, Dodge overall may make just as much money (or quite likely, more money since people who would not have purchased a Dodge will be attracted by the truck) but with sales driven down in those other models, their existence could not be justified financially. How can you justify spending $30 million to re-design a sedan if only 5000 of it sold last year?

And even if Dodge is raking in the money with just the new Ram and a couple other models, Dodge will be in a precarious position because it's models are not diversified. So what if the truck boom dies? WHat if there's another oil crisis? It'd be a stupid position for Dodge to corner itself to.

Having said that, it's a bad *** truck, and I don't think it'll steal sales from Viper, not much anyway. More on that later because I gottta go home now

 

Here is what I see happening with that truck. If dodge put's a
V-10 under the hood it won't be a true viper engine. They are going to go with a cast-iron truck block and have lower compression, different cam duration,Stock V-10 rods and a viper crank. Different tuned upper intake and Calibration is my guess.

It will be 400hp and an auto. A stick would kill them on warranty! That will be the only way they can make money off it and make a production run of 6K or more. All the manufacturers have to sell enough to get their development costs out of the production run.

If they Flood the market with too many viper engines wouldn't that lessen the value of the vipers? If I owned a viper i wouldn't want another vehicle line having my engine or HP. Especially after paying 65K depending on what year and model viper. And I'm just guessing at the cost of a viper. I don't know what they list for. I know it's over 50k!

There is no way they can put a true viper powertrain in that truck for $20,000. The engine and trans alone is at least $14-18,000 grand. Then the cost to build the rest of the truck. My guess they are going for the same price range as the Lightning.

$32-$35,000. is my guess! With a true viper P/T $45k-58K. That is my marketing analysis.

When I pull my truck out of storage she's going to be a 4 month virgin looking for a new Dodge truck to #@$& up. My 5.4L will be on steroids!!Lets get ready to RUUUUUUUUUUUMBLE!!

P.S SVT is not going to roll-over and let Dodge take this market. They know they have a good following. Just wait and see! That's if Ford sticks to the game plan!! he,he. Bring that German owned Dodge ON! Yeah!! Fight'n Words baby.

 

Thats ok. 93+3 = 96? Indy ram, I guess. The Little Red Express was still out in the late 70s, WAY before anyone else, and in stock trim the little red express will still take a stock 1st gen L all day long.



Clay

 

One thing you guys need to keep in mind when estimating costs is that it might cost YOU and ME 20K to buy a Viper engine/tranny, but it only costs Dodge, the OEM manufacturer probably less than 1/2 that! You know they make the thing, so they dont have to make as much money on the drive train by stuffing it in a different vehicle, than they do when the sell them in a crate.

Clay

 

somone said dodge's viper sales in 03 will be cut by this truck? no way. there is a waiting line so long for the viper srt10 that you can not even get on it. go to dodge.com then viper than it's the third link in the center of the page. Just my jibber jabber

 

I too dont beleive this truck can be sold for 20,000. At the unveiling they announced it themselves the price would be close to a lightning. So probably 30-35,000 sounds a little better.

 

Thats great that you READ that in a publication, I also read that the 2002 Lightning ran 14.5 recently. Publications are bogus. Each one has their favorate manufacturer and leans towards them in their articles. From past experience, I have seen/heard/had and fixed wayyyyyyy more ford than any other automobile. No flames, but damn, how more obvious could it be!!! How many engines have we been through. How many intercoolers.

It's funny reading through this thread because alot of you are stuck soooo far up Fords butt you can see out their mouth. Face it!!! Dodge finally built a better truck (if its produced). Maby ford will respond and blow dodge away. But if dodge does come out with this truck, there will be a faster more powerful, better sport truck on the road than the gen 2 lightning. (it will be much uglier though).

I am not ******* ford, I am just telling it how it is. This is how it is. I love my Ford Lightning more than anything but I am not afrade to admit that dodge built the better vehicle this time. The dodge may be 2 cyl's bigger but it also doesn't have a blower. Maby it took dodge 10 years to build a better truck, but they did. Anyone thought about the Syclone or typhoon lately. It took ford 10 years to build a better truck and our better truck has 2 more cylinders than the sy or ty. Lets all quit thinking up excuses as to why the L is still better and admit that dodge has taken the cake this time. Think logically!!! We will see if Dodge produces this beast, but if they do, the gen 2 is no longer the king of the "stock" road. We can compare a modified L to this dodge all day but that is like apples to oranges. If you blow the dodge, it will be fast as hell!!! Stock for stock, if Dodge provides, ford will need to respond to keep their "fastest production truck" title.

 

They've already said that it will have the SAME powertrain as the viper.