You cannot deny the sex appeal of the Dodge Viper, especially since the body was redesigned to hide those unsightly side pipes. This car screams "look at me" and looks like its running 100 mph even while sitting at rest. The powertrain hasn't undergone any historic changes over the years, aside from gaining a few extra ponies, but the body has certainly been updated, and the benefit of that is that the car naturally attracts women.
Chicks dig the Viper, plain and simple. We are truck guys, though, and as much fun as we had flossin' the low-flying missile, we would still take the Ram home with us for several good reasons.
First off, we are cheapskates, and the Ram costs $30,000 less than the Viper. Second is this truck indeed hauls ass, thanks to its Viper SRT-10 drivetrain, and carves corners better than any factory sport truck we've every driven. But, the problem is that chicks don't care about canyon carving, and the Ram's curb weight and mushy automatic transmission prevent it from giving the Viper a real run for its money. The third reason we'd pick it over the car is because it's much more comfortable to drive and can actually serve other purposes, like towing and hauling stuff. But, perhaps the most important reason of all and the one that really matters when you are talking about sex appeal is that the truck has room to haul even more ass. If you have the game, you can literally pile more hot women into the Ram than the Viper, which means that a road trip can be more than a large party of two.
When we got our collective hands on the Ram and the Viper at the same time, we first considered pitting one against the other in a no-holds-barred performance test. That notion was quickly squashed after driving both vehicles. There simply is no comparison in terms of acceleration between the two. Put a capable driver shifting the six-speed manual tranny in the Viper and anyone you like controlling the four-speed automatic in the Ram, and the Viper will dust the truck from a stoplight. The Viper will go from zero to 60 mph in less than four seconds in First gear, and the truck, well, let's just say it won't. Keep the throttles pinned for a full quarter mile, and the truck will fall more than a second behind. The standard cab version of the SRT-10 will fare slightly better, but even it is only 340 pounds lighter than the hefty quad cab Ram.
The Viper is a wild animal of a machine, a race car equipped with air conditioning, a CD player, and a plush leather interior. On the other hand, the Ram is everything you'd expect from a high-end Dodge vehicle. It's decidedly more plush and inviting than the Viper, because it's maxed out in the creature comfort department. The suspension on the truck isn't nearly as harsh as the Viper's, there's substantially more room inside the quad cab, and the six-disc in-dash CD changer, satellite navigation, and radio put it over the top in terms of options. Heck, ours even came with a power sliding rear window. It has the leather-trimmed seating like the Viper and a power sunroof, too. Basically, the truck is the perfect daily driver, if you don't mind getting 9 mpg. It took a little more than a day behind the wheels of both to realize that the sport truck was better than the Viper in most non-performance areas.
Without a drag race to photograph, we decided to make a donut run with both vehicles and a couple of the Sport Truck models just because we could. The models both fell in love with the Viper and not us (damn!), until they grew tired of the rock-hard hi-po suspension in the car. Once they realized there was ample room in the Ram, though, they decided that if they both couldn't ride in the car at the same time, then the truck was the cooler of the two vehicles. Who are we to argue with two beautiful babes? Here's the skinny on both Dodges.
 Try this with a Viper. We...  Try this with a Viper. We hitched up a car hauler and another quad cab Ram to test the SRT-10's towing might. The manufacturer-suggested towing capacity of 8,150 pounds seemed to be spot-on, since the other Ram weighed 5,450 pounds. We had no trouble moving that trailer with the V-10 under the hood of our SRT-10. |  The 505-cid V-10 is a tight...  The 505-cid V-10 is a tight fit in the confines of the Viper's engine bay, due to the narrowness of the chassis... |  ...In the Ram, there's plenty...  ...In the Ram, there's plenty of room around the engine for accessories, but Dodge had to route the air inlet to the inner fenderwell, instead of directly in front of the motor like the Viper. |
 |  Both the Viper and the Ram...  Both the Viper and the Ram stop exceptionally well, thanks to gargantuan 15-inch front and 14-inch rear Brembo disc brakes. The Viper wears staggered 18-inch (front) and 19-inch (rear) wheels, while the Ram sports a polished set of deuce-deuces all the way around. |  And the Ram's best feature-the...  And the Ram's best feature-the back seat! |