PTG Magazine - F.E.- Secret Love & Creator Profile Double

[PTG Coops]

PTG Magazine Forum Edition - Viper Double Release

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PTG Secret Love - For The Love Of Cars

JEZZA819

In 1978 my father bought the local Chrysler Plymouth Dodge dealership. Now if you're familiar with Chrysler's history, the late 70's were a dark time. Teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, cars and trucks that nobody wanted. Not the best time to get into the business with them. Lee Iacocca secured a bailout loan from the US Government in 1979 and things started to turn around and Chrysler started to make money again. 

But there was still not much to get a car lover excited in their line-up. K Cars, New Yorkers, Omni, etc. were appliances at best. All that changed in 1988 when Iacocca authorized production of a sports car. A back to basics sports car like the AC Cobra was. In 1989 at the Detroit Auto Show Chrysler showed the world the Dodge Viper. Chrysler had generated actual buzz in the automotive world. Something I didn't think we were capable of. 

The first generation Viper went on sale in January 1992. No air-conditioning, no door glasses, no exterior door handles, soft-top and plastic side window curtains. 8.0L V10 engine producing 400hp. Only available with a 6 speed manual transmission. No ABS, no traction control. It truly was a back to basics sports car. They were delivered in their own exclusive enclosed transporters. You were required to personally meet the carrier to accept delivery of the car regardless of the time. They simply could not be left outside until the next day. I think we received about 5 Vipers in our time as a dealer. I had to go down and receive one at about 9pm. Since my father knew the police chief he asked if a patrol car could standby while we unloaded the car to make sure no one tried to steal it. Of course the two policemen wanted to look over the car before I pulled it inside. 

In 1994 Viper started to get some options like air conditioning, suspension upgrades, optional removable hardtop. 1996 saw the introduction of the Viper GTS Coupe, which is my favourite version of the Viper. 

Dodge decided that Viper was also going to race. Oreca was chosen to run the Viper program and the car made its debut in 1996. After a slow start the cars got better and better over the next couple of years. In 1998 Viper claimed a class win at LeMans. They backed that up with another win at LeMans in 1999 with different Viper's taking the top 6 positions in class.  

Different Vipers were raced around the world by privateers for much of the next decade or so but there was not a factory backed team until 2012 when Riley Technologies was chosen to run the SRT Motorsports team. The team had a banner year in 2014 winning the team championship and a driver's title for Kumo Whittmer. However in classic Dodge fashion, they announced they were discontinuing the team. The 2014 cars carried my favourite Viper racing livery, the red cars with white stripes. 

The retail Viper has undergone a few changes in its lifetime. In 2013 the engine size increased to 8.4L. Various creature comforts and performance upgrades like traction control, ABS, etc. have been added. A hardcore, lightweight version called the ACR was introduced in 1999. 

But the basic formula has never changed. Big honking V10 engine upfront, manual transmission only. Rumour has it that 2017 could see the end of the Viper, as we know it. The sales have dwindled since the price tag has climbed to around $100,000 and other cars like the Corvette Z07 have produced comparable or better performance for much less money.  

But for all its faults, the Viper will always be my automotive secret love. 


If this has inspired you to pick up a Viper then you'll find not one but two of them below which have being exclusively tuned by PTG Jamie and painted by FTR Pinkman. You can also read all about the history of painter FTR Pinkman and his life of Forza! 

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2013 SRT Viper GTS







2008 Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR

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PTG Forum Member - Creator Profile - FTR Pinkman

Racing and painting, painting and racing. Forza has spoilt us over the years . I like doing both, a lot. Much to my wife's annoyance . my love affair with racing games really started in arcades, outrun, if you can remember that far back, was my first point of contact. Then I came across the play station with the likes of toca and gran turismo. Went through 1, 2 and 3 with relish, loving the improvements to each new game. Then when I thought it couldn't possibly get any better I found the forza series on X box.

Smitten by f2 my loyalty never wavered. My misplaced sense of being really fast never tested due to not being on line at the time. So I thought I was spectacularly fast, god was I wrong when I picked up f3 and played on line. I played a lot online and had a tryout with a couple of ptg guys to see if I was able to join the group, it wasn't till I had my derriere handed to me on a silver platter (lapped, thanks guys) that it dawned on me that really I was pretty naff, so with tail between my legs I dabbled with the painting side of things.

I had seen a few paints and I thought, I can do that, which I duly tried to do. One steep learning curve later I began to realise that to make a paint truly stunning you needed to be pretty blimmin perfect. It wasn't till f4 came out that I really started to try and be painting perfection and race again.

F4 introduced me to no ABS and clutch with manual gears. (I still race with TCS to this day, well not on the lower tiered cars) I started to get faster and found a group of like minded racers and full throttle racing was born. We shared everything and anything and had a good range of fast and slow racers, I found out I'm very competitive, stupidly competitive. We had nightly race events and challenges. F4 was in my opinion pretty much perfect. When I wasn't racing I was painting. From sharing I picked up loads of ideas and tricks in the paint booth and painted many many cars most of them real life liveries. I try to strive for perfection in my paints. If you have seen or downloaded any then you might notice this. And thank you too.

Then came f5 ........pretty much killed our community. All my hard work on paints and liveries....gone, consigned to the f4 bin. But the game looked fantastic, racing was good and I was getting faster and faster. I started painting again liking the new range of base colors on offer and the upped layer count. I still like to paint real life liveries but now I decided to put my own twist on things, using the base paint as part of the overall design was a challenge and if you caught my work again (much appreciated) you can track my progress using this way of painting.

Imagine my relief when f6 came along and you could transfer again. I believe I can race quickly now maybe not anywhere as quick as some of the racers but I can hold my own, I race fair, I will always give back a mistake, and I do have a few, due to my angry aggressive driving. And I will let my designs do the talking. Check them out in the PTG forums or search my gt FTR Pinkman most of my designs are on the race cars in the game, take a peek. There are more than posted here. Although my paints don't stack up against certain chaps painting skills, i doff my cap in your general direction guys, you know who you are.

I rarely paint to order but i had a gauntlet slapped on me and had a double viper challenge, the results can be seen in here. I hope you enjoy them as much as i enjoyed painting them.....ps i can't tune so don't use any of my tunes.......They are pants.

If you enjoyed that and love these Vipers as much as we do give him a follow!

GT: FTR Pinkman / Twitter: @pm7oh

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2013 SRT Viper GTS

Tuned By: PTG Jamie
Paint By: FTR Pinkman
Lobby Tune
S800
640 Bhp
600 LB-FT
2615 LBS
49%

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2008 Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR

Tuned By: PTG Jamie
Paint By: FTR Pinkman
Lobby Tune
S800
666 Bhp
621 LB-FT
2991 LBS
49%

[Beetfarmer89]

S Class with no aero? Oh that is brave! Very cool car guys!