Hello we everyone, I'm phillip from Georgia. I've been in love with vipers since I was 7 years old and first saw one. My mom worked for a Chrysler dealer at the time and actually checked me out of school one day because one had arrived at the dealer and I loved them THAT much!

Anyway, I'm about to be 31 and MAY soon have the opportunity to make my life long dream a reality. I've studied these cars since the beginning and felt like I knew a lot but now that I may be able to buy one I have begun doing more research than ever and I have come up with a couple of questions. I hope that it's ok for me to ask here. If not I apologize.

Firstly, as pure instinct when I think of buying a Viper the 1st gen immediately comes to mind as the one I want. I like the smooth hood, 3 spoke wheels, side exhaust, the gray interior with non airbag wheel, just everything about it. However, through my research I have seen that it's nearly impossible to find body parts for them and if anything ever happened it would pretty much be an automatic total loss, that bothers me because it's not something I would want to let the insurance company scrap but it seems that even if I wanted to repair it myself i wouldn't be able to. That's an issue to me and I wonder if it's a big enough issue to skip a gen 1/2?

Also, for the time being I also own a BMW 3 series and my wife has an explorer, those are our current dd vehicles, so the viper would be an "every time I can" car which would probably see many days driving to work, many times running errands, etc. basically I would like it to be the primary dd vehicle for me, also within a couple of years I have a daughter who is turning 16 and I want to give her the bimmer, so unless I happen to buy another car the Viper would be my only ride by then. With those in mind should I look more at the SRT range? Seems like everything I read says the SRT is superior in every category, except for looks if you ask me.

Local to me there are 4 that I am looking at. 1 is a 94 with the soft top only, 1 is a 97 GTS lowered and gorgeous, there's an 01 with hard top, and an 04 with some engine work and exhaust. They're all within the $40k budget I'm trying to stick with. As mentioned above, the 94 is my first choice but given how I want to drive I'll need a hard top and glass windows and that should be $3k +/- and (shoot me) but I'd like to do intake, header, and exhaust if it isn't already done on the one I buy. Anyway, so, the 94 is first pick, the 01 I like because it has actual roll up windows and the hard top, just don't like the GTS wheels, vented hood, and rear exhaust but maybe I could live with it. Then probably the GTS because it's absolutely beautiful and it's still a 2nd gen, final choice would probably be the SRT because the look just doesn't speak to me like the earlier ones BUT that is by far the nicest of the bunch. It already has all of the work done to it which I would want AND it's super clean and low miles.

Should I reconsider the order of my list? Anything you guys can add I would love to hear.

Thank you!!!