Chrysler Nearly Built Its Own Viper. Here’s Why It Failed

The Chrysler Firepower concept debuted at the 2005 Detroit Auto Show as a follow-up to the radical ME Four-Twelve supercar revealed a year earlier. This car would serve as a bridge between the Crossfire (on sale at the time) and the aspirational ME supercar, and would use the Dodge Viper chassis. The Firepower previewed what might have been possible for the brand as Chrysler tried to infuse high-performance driving dynamics and a premium feel into its future products. But it never came to fruition.

Chrysler explored the idea of producing the Firepower for nearly two years before Trevor Creed, former senior vice president of Chrysler Group Design, revealed to Ward’s Auto in 2006 that the company “couldn’t find a viable way to do it.” Just like that, Chrysler’s lux’d-up take on the Dodge Viper was forever put on a shelf, but not forgotten.

This is Concept We Forgot, our deep dive into the weird and wonderful concept cars you might not remember.

The Firepower wouldn’t have been a Viper clone, even though it had the same platform and wheelbase. The automaker installed an SRT-developed 6.1-liter Hemi V-8 engine under the hood from the then-new 300C SRT-8 instead of the Dodge’s snarling 8.3-liter V-10. It also swapped the Viper’s Tremec six-speed manual for a more comfort-oriented five-speed automatic with Chrysler’s AutoStick function, which gave drivers manual control over the gear selection. The V-8 made 425 horsepower and 420 pound-feet of torque, 100 hp and 105 lb-ft less than the 2005 Viper.

The Firepower was supposed to be a Corvette rival. The C6 that Chevrolet launched for 2005 had a 6.0-liter V-8 making 400 horsepower and 400 pound-feet of torque. It could hit 60 miles per hour in the mid-four-second range and a top speed of 186 mph. The Firepower, meanwhile, sprinted to 60 in 4.5 seconds and could reach 175 mph, according to Chrysler’s original press release.

And more importantly, it looked awesome. Brian Nielander is currently the Exterior Chief Designer for Dodge, but he also styled the ME Four-Twelve and penned the Firepower’s exterior. At the time, Chrysler’s upper management was looking for young designers with fresh ideas, Nielander told us in an interview earlier this week. The automaker was interested in further exploring the brand’s performance side after the launch of the Chrysler 300 in 2004 and the Crossfire in 2003. 

“We had the Viper chassis and platform, and we were trying to figure out what to do” about using the architecture for a Chrysler model, Nielander said. He couldn’t point to a specific make or model that influenced the Firepower’s design, but a lot of the styling elements were an evolution of the Crossfire, with “a little bit of Aston.”

Greg Howell, now Jeep’s Exterior Chief Designer, designed the cabin. He combined Ocean Deep Blue with Oyster leather and Behr maple accents. Chrysler also added luxury features one would expect from a premium GT offering, such as leather sport seats, automatic climate control, milled aluminum trim, ornate features, and premium audio—but it never had the opportunity to help redefine the brand.

“Greg had the freedom to conjure up something beautiful,” Nielander said. “I thought it was one of the best interiors we’ve ever done. It was super expressive and super beautiful.” 

While Chrysler started 2005 with a bang by revealing the Firepower, dark times loomed for the industry and its relationship with Daimler. In 2005, General Motors and Ford suffered heavy financial losses, and while Chrysler was the only US automaker to report a profit that year, 2006 was a bloodbath for the industry.

The Firepower program got “pretty far along,” according to Nielander. But months before the company was able to green-light the sports car, Chrysler lost $1.5 billion in a single quarter. With a lineup of cars no one wanted to buy, inventories ballooned, and executives searched high and low for new profitable models and cost savings, which did not include a costly, low-volume sports car like the Firepower.

It was quite a turn from earlier in the year when Chrysler Group CEO Tom LaSorda said in January 2006 that the Firepower was still “on our agenda.”

“It kinda stung not seeing it [enter production]” Nielander said. “Every car designer that’s out there dreams to see their car on the road.” But, Nielander says the fact that it never reached production almost “makes it more special.”

Higher-ups approved a different concept for production—the Challenger. And while it’s a shame something as gorgeous as the Firepower never entered production, concept cars “play a lot of important roles and can influence future design,” said Irina Zavatski, Vice President of Chrysler Exterior Design. “It inspires and challenges people to do new things, and it drivers a lot of inspiration.”

Concepts serve multiple purposes like introducing new technologies or materials, or testing the public’s reaction to new designs and ideas. Chrysler’s futuristic-looking Halcyon EV concept, much like the Firepower, hopes to push the brand in new directions.  

Chrysler

The DaimlerChrysler partnership would eventually come under serious strain. A clash of cultures between Stuttgart and Auburn Hills made managing the massive global company searching for synergies difficult.

In mid-2007, a few months after Creed revealed Chrysler would not put the Firepower into production, DaimlerChrysler split. The merger was valued at $36 billion in 1998, but Daimler would end up selling Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management for just $7.4 billion.

But that still didn’t alleviate Chrysler’s financial troubles, and it ended up filing for bankruptcy two years later in mid-2009, ceasing all production during the reorganization. The company’s Conner Avenue Assembly Plant in Detroit, where it had built the Viper, was the first Chrysler factory to restart operations in July 2009, but it had a new owner with Fiat that had its own ideas about how to revive the struggling automaker, which didn’t include the Firepower. 

FCA would resurrect the Viper three years later, while the Firepower would end up on display at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum, which permanently closed at the end of 2016. Many of the cars that were at the museum remain in Chrysler’s possession, including the Firepower, which Nielander said he saw just a few months ago, and it was in “good shape.” Good to hear.