Yup, that's a Dodge Viper, from 1967. You remember, don't you? back in the days when the muscle car wars were rapidly nearing their zenith. Horsepower was just compression and fuel and fuel was cheap. And Dodge decided it needed a rival to Chevrolet's ace-in-the-hole Corvette? Thus was born, the Viper, a different American sports car, with huge power, and styling so flamboyant that Sting Rays ran and hid like little girls. It s double-bubble roof aped the European GTs of the day, as did other styling details such as the surprisingly dainty treatment of the lamps and bumpers. Sure it shared some of its basic proportions with the aforementioned 'Vette, but that's just because they were the right proportions for a sports car.
However, with a 440 Magnum V8 under the hood it was set to leave all but the swiftest of imports and Corvettes standing at the lights. Its chassis was stout, its suspension was sophisticated, and it quickly became a performance legend. Even the effect of the titanic weight of that 440 was minimised by setting it behind the front axle. What a machine! I'm so glad Dodge had the casabas to build this thing. I still want one, have since I was...
Ok, so it never happened, and even if it had, I'm not sure how much I'd really be in love with it. Still, this is a very sophisticated effort to show us a car that could have turned the muscle car era on its ear. Admittedly, it looks very much like the Chevy from some angles (like the inside angle for a start), and one of the European GTs from which it seems to take some cues, is the Volvo P1800 (check the rear fender-line). But I come away thinking it's actually pretty cool.
The thing that makes me like the project so much is the way Reston seems to have gone about it. The chassis is re-imagined, there was research done on trends in construction and design in the late 60s. And yet, the car is recognizably a Viper, even down to the vents in the front fenders, and the duck-tail shape of the boot-lid. 
I do take issue with a couple items though. First off, the 440 is, in Reston's words from "the Challenger R/T, but modified to gain some more HP..." It's a great idea until you realize that the Challenger didn't debut until 1970, let's just assume he meant Charger R/T and leave it at that.My other problem also concerns the engine. Why the 440. and why just the Magnum? Was there going to be a six-pack option? How about a Hemi-426, or a 340 (also with a six-pack)? The chassis is advanced enough to deserve sports car status, and a lighter engine than the 440, the reason dodge only offers the one engine in today's Viper is that it sells in tiny numbers, and they'd have to crash test another one to homologate the chassis with that motor. In 1967, there would have been no reason for Dodge to be so conservative. Like the Charger and the Barracuda, Chrysler would have built a Viper for every man who wanted one.
In the end, I'm one of those men. I can solve all the problems of spec in my mind, and remember that my '67 Viper came with a 340, a six-pack, limited slip, and rally springs. I street raced it, took it to the strip. Took her out to the old track at Riverside as well, where I decimated the Corvette crowd and the Jaguars (though she did get a little squirrelly through turn six). I cheered in '68 when the Viper won its class at Sebring, then morned when a broken transmission put it out at Le Mans after 16hrs, then cheered again, when it took top in class at Daytona. The Beach Boys wrote a song about the Viper. Then the 70s rolled around and nothing would ever be the same. Nixon, the EPA, dirty freakin tree-hugging hippies, blah, blah, blah...From: Car Body Design via: Jalopnik
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