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

Fahrvergnugen Almost 50% more weight than an E28? Just as ludicrous as inflating a sedan to 1,000psi and calling it a GT anything...
KOKing The next dominant driver/team combo will come just as it has before. I'd say Max has another season, but the rules changes for '26 and whatever driver/team combos that happen to come along with that could start a streak for Lando, Charles or George.
JMII I wish this survey listed the complaints in each category separately because as others have mentioned the "I can't save a radio preset" isn't a real problem in my book. Yes this kind of problem points to poor UI design and could lead to frustration down the road but could be easily solved by better education, like a simple YouTube video.
JMII Remember Braun? This +1. Rule changes can always shake things up. The bigger question is why can't Perez get similar performance out of the same car? While the gap between Red Bull and the rest has come down, Perez should still be in 3rd or 4th in every race just based on Max's results... instead he spends the whole race behind the other top 5 drivers/teams. At the F1 level I don't think its the driver, its more about the car normally. In Indycar things are different since its a spec series with only small differences between teams and engines, there the driver and strategy (or dumb luck) plays a bigger role
Mike-NB2 "Here, the turbocharger is apparently preconditioned to a higher turbine speed which should pay dividends with a right-now power delivery. " Does anyone know what this means? The article appears to have been written by someone who doesn't have a lot of R knowledge and this is the first I've heard of this. I understand that that some turbos can have variable vanes, but I wasn't aware that how the turbocharger responds can be changed in a different mode. I'm asking because I have a 2024 R (manual) and in R Mode (which I use 100% of the time for the tighter steering, tighter suspension and better sounding exhaust) and the engine will hit the rev limiter much faster than I'm used to. I had a '19 GLI with the same engine (but different tune, obviously) and it didn't rev that quickly. With the R in R Mode, the engine will go from 2000 rpm to redline blindingly fast. The R has much shorter gearing than the GLI, so that would be a factor too. 120 km/h in the GLI had 2200 rpm where the R at that speed is 3200. Any thoughts?