Exotic Coupe Comparison

Enough talk. You demanded a legit, track-test showdown between America's 500-horse contenders. We're here to serve.

Sorry, Bow-Tie boosters, Chevy's Corvette sat this one out. Among the world's best-performance values, even the 405-horsepower Z06 lacks the beans to tee up on this turf. And, as you can tell from our cover and related article in this issue, a new Corvette is on its way, which creates all sorts of future shoot-around possibilities. Stay tuned on that front.

This is a track test, not a road test, so there won't be any cupholder talk, and we couldn't care less about golf-bag capacity. We're here for numbers and an understanding of how these two philosophically and mechanically differing designs, and their disparate technical approaches, get the job done. Other than the fact that the Fabulous Ford and the Demonic Dodge are both built in Michigan, USA, they couldn't be more mismatched. The Viper uses a steel chassis with composite bodywork, powered by a front-mounted 8.3-liter naturally aspirated overhead-valve V-10. Ford's new GT relies on aluminum alloys for its chassis and coachwork and runs a supercharged, DOHC V-8 mounted amidships. The Viper is a convertible, the GT a coupe.

These guys can't agree on anything. A perfect matchup.

Our Viper was a production SRT-10. The GT assigned to us was prosaically dubbed "Engineering CP-04." That's "confirmation/certification prototype number four" in engineerspeak. In other words, something beyond an initial prototype, but not yet a pure, production piece, either. Of the 15 CPs built, some will be crashed (okay to wince here...), some will do emissions duty, others will serve the Powertrain Gods. And our gritty, well-worn tester is regularly taken out for torture by the ride and handling teams. Still, it's largely representative of what a real GT will perform like, but not quite. 2005 GT production begins this spring.