For a car that is no longer manufactured, the Dodge Viper has a following around the world, including the Viper Club of Ontario.
The club, which began in 1997, has over 250 guys and gals enjoying around 50 social and performance driving events each year.
I met the club’s current President, Bruce Hadfield, at Drive Festival in Bowmanville back in September. The club had an exhibit with several Vipers on display, but Bruce’s car caught my eye because of the personalized license plate, VPRCLBON.
Upon becoming President in 2021, he had his personalized plate made up to promote the club.
“The car is very eye-catching, somebody looks at the car, sees the license plate and asks, “What does it mean?’” Bruce told me. “Basically, people want to know all about the car. They sometimes ask if it’s a Corvette. There’s a lot of confusion between Corvettes and Vipers.
“Everybody is familiar with Corvettes but few are with Vipers. Dodge only made about 30,000 over 25 years, and Chevrolet makes more Corvettes than that each year.”
He said the first Viper came out in 1992 and it was quite the sensation at the New York Auto Show.
“People had never seen anything like it,” Bruce said. “Most cars were about 200 horsepower and this one was 400 horsepower. Viper clubs started forming a couple of years later along with a national club made up of local regional clubs like ours in Ontario. Before long there were 2,000 members around the world.
“It’s somewhat similar to the way the Corvette clubs came about, I’m sure. Enthusiastic owners who wanted to get together to share their passion.”
There is a national Viper event every two years at different cities in the U.S.
Bruce, a 69-year-old retiree who lives north of Whitby and who owned a lighting design company, joined the club in 2014 after acquiring a Viper.
He had a connection at Dodge who searched for one, and when a dealer order for the sold out limited special edition Viper was cancelled by a dealer it was allocated to Bruce. Only 159 units of his model, the Viper TA (as in Track Attack), were produced.
“When they brought that car out it was tested at Laguna Seca racetrack in California and it set the production car track record,” Bruce said. “I had enjoyed tracking for many years, and as such you look for a car that performs well and stands up to that kind of usage. This was a factory special that was built for those demands.”
“That’s what drew me to this model. It could stand up to track use, but not only that, it was the fastest car you could buy with a license plate.”
He paid $120,000 for the car and has never had any desire to modify it.
“Being a limited special edition, you kind of respect the car for what it is,” Bruce said. “They built it right, and my feeling is if I needed an even faster car I’d rather buy one as opposed to modifying this one. Years ago I had a Toyota MR2 Turbo and a Supra Twin Turbo, and those cars I needed to modify to be more competitive.”
In 2017, the same year Dodge ceased production of the Viper, Bruce joined the Ontario Viper Club as a director.
“I’d been so impressed with how the Viper had exceeded my expectations, with my interactions with Dodge, dealers who were club sponsors, and the benefits and value of being a Viper club member, that I found helping on our club’s Board of Directors was a great way to share my passion,” Bruce said.
He took on the president’s role in 2021.
“Where our club had previously focused on sharing owners’ passions socially, we needed to meet new challenges by developing club resources to support our members’ on-going needs,” Bruce said.
He said the club actively promotes membership benefits to owners across Ontario and Western New York.
“We’ve enjoyed strong membership growth and support, which includes some of the Dodge Viper’s designers, engineers and manufacturer’s executives,” Bruce said. “Our club supports the enthusiast car culture through relationships with other local car clubs and club supporters like Mobil 1 and Hagerty.”
He’s often asked about the motor and horsepower. For the record, it’s a 640 hp, V10 and he has driven on various local and distant tracks. He said it’s a great cruiser and not “objectionable” in terms of being too loud.
“It just looks and sounds like a powerful car,” Bruce said. “Whether it’s at Drive Festival, when you stop for gas, pretty much anywhere, the car draws attention, and like most owners, my wife and I enjoy sharing the passion with the public.
“We have kids sitting in the car and their parents taking pictures as we tell them all about the car. It’s basically a six-month car in our climate. I mostly drive it for club events because we have so many of them. I can be out pretty much every week, sometimes two or three times a week. I have another car I use for everyday driving and save the Viper for special occasions…or other occasions I want to make special!”
Perry Lefko is the Content Manager of The Car Magazine. He can be reached at [email protected]. Feel free to forward any story suggestions or comments.
