1st Viper

[Old Surfer]

Hi guys and gals, I've been thinking about a Viper since '06 (lurking Viper Alley since then). I've been a Porsche guy for most of my adult life. I've owned a '05 Gt3, a '02 Gt2, a '79 930 that I restored and several others. I'm also a sport bike enthusiast and currently own a '15 BMW K1300S Motorsport Edition. So now that I've given you a picture of my vehicle background, I'll tell you the rest of the story.

Back in '96, I was working in Washington D.C. and had the opportunity to visit the auto show after hours. Well, that is when I first set eyes on the GTS and was smitten. I loved the car but life and responsibilities took priority and I never made the move. Fast forward; I sold all of my toys before I moved back home to Florida to enjoy retirement in July of '15. So the garage did not include a toy anymore except for the BMW, and I started my search for a Gen II GTS, I knew a lot about them since I always kept up with the generation changes. I really thought about a 96-99 car because of the forged internals, but I was never going to modify it. I wanted a collector car quality example and ABS I felt was more important to me.

After about a year or so of searching, I found a pristine example 100 miles south of me. A fully documented '02 GTS with 14k miles. I am OCD about cars and this car met my OCD standards, PPI came back clean, and I picked it up Thursday. Only mods are a Corsa exhaust with high flow cats (I have the original) a skip shift eliminator and billet power steering pulley. Previous owner just put on Michelin PS2s. Very happy to be a viper owner. Enjoy the pics, I'm the goofy looking guy in the black shirt.