1996 Hardbound Owners/Marketing Book

[Thawk97]

SO I was reading somewhere (thought it was one of the forums but I can't find it to save my life now) about a very limited run of hardbound books that were done when the '96 GTS came out. I believe they were marketing materials but something like only 50 were ever made. The book was blue with two thick white stripes and a mini version of the Pete emblem on the cover.

Anyone know what I'm talking about? I've been trying to find whatever it was that I was reading and I can't. If anyone is lucky enough to own one, it'd be really cool to see some pics on here (and/or validate that I'm not going crazy).

[JonB ~ PartsRack]

You may recall that I was the lucky-bugger to receive the first retail GTS after a ceremony at CAAP. on 6/8/96.

I have a couple of those hard-cover (thin) books in my personal 'museum' and they are still cellophane-sealed. I am fairly certain that more than 50 were made, but maybe only 100.....

[Granger73]

Do you still have the car?

[daveg]

Revheat refers to them in his Doc... Would love to have one!

[Thawk97]

Revheat refers to them in his Doc... Would love to have one!

THAT's where I was reading it. I'd also love to have a copy.

[95Viper]

I think we would ALL love to have one,,,,, sayyy sounds like a good auction piece?????

[daveg]

I believe 250 were printed.

[JonB ~ PartsRack]

[QUOTE=Granger73;44913]Do you still have the car?[/QUOTE]

Yes indeed!


Trivia:

All 86 folks that built it signed the (painted) spare tire cover. Now has 53,200 miles. It has been on track at Portland, Seattle, Thunderhill, Miller, LagunaSeca, Las Vegas, Texas, and even Sebring and Homestead. And I probably forgot a couple .....

Another note: It remains the ONLY Viper that was ever assembled at CAAP - TWICE !

At one point in 1998 it had the highest miles in Dodge warrantee records. And it had a few annoying issues. Team Viper suggested that they could dismantle it to review some insulation, frame, wiring harness routings, and other 'issues.' Reliable called for it in November and it went back home to CAAP for the December shutdown. CAAP took 2 complete rolls of film of the body-off dismantle-rebuild. One pic clearly shows the tail-panel and PACECAR plate, sitting off the car with other panels. Sad sight back then!

I received all new carpets, weatherstrip, insulation, and hoses....and more. It came back via Reliable in March, with new 1999 Vipers. It was smelling like a brand new car. When VOI-10 was at Detroit, several of the Craftspersons 100% remembered my Boomerang GTS ! Some of them took the pix, and are IN the pix!

I think Im just as proud of the "Built Twice" heritage as I am having the first unit released!

[Granger73]

Great story Jon. 96 owners. I have 96 Viper pace car decals, and a great dealer promo kit with video tape used for the 96GTS. PM me if interested.

[Thawk97]

[QUOTE=JonB ~ PartsRack;44935]

Do you still have the car?[/QUOTE]

Yes indeed!


Trivia:

All 86 folks that built it signed the (painted) spare tire cover. Now has 53,200 miles. It has been on track at Portland, Seattle, Thunderhill, Miller, LagunaSeca, Las Vegas, Texas, and even Sebring and Homestead. And I probably forgot a couple .....

Jon - so did you get a separate set of track wheels or have you run with the stock cast ones (I've been curious if a small amount of tracking with those rims is a 'no-no' given the weakness compared with the '97+ forged ones)?

[JonB ~ PartsRack]

[QUOTE=Thawk97;44962]

Jon - so did you get a separate set of track wheels or have you run with the stock cast ones (I've been curious if a small amount of tracking with those rims is a 'no-no' given the weakness compared with the '97+ forged ones)?

More Trivia:

My Blu/White 96 GTS was built with WHITE Wheels! The Dodge Exec who received one of the 3 White/Blue 96 GTSs wanted polished wheels.... his car came with White. So Marketing swapped the wheels for us. He got my polished...I got his whites. Drew Alcazar (Russo-Steele Auction owner) saw mine at CAAP and wanted white too. And he got them.

I got sick and tired of cleaning BRAKE DUST off of white wheels by 1998, and got a set of forged 17" 98s on there. I had the Whiteys detailed and stored for posterity.

If you run treaded DOT tires, NOT R-compound, you wont have any HPDE issues on 17" cast OE wheels. The guys with problems had serious suspension, Brake, HP and R-compound rubber. Pulled more Gs than the cats wheels could do. Those guys had cracks and even catastrophic hub separations.

[Ron]

I also have a couple of these books. One in cellophane and one that was used as a photo proof -

book1.jpg

book2.jpg

[RevHeat]

Here some information regarding the 1996 Dodge Viper Sales brochure that I have acquired over the years. I bought a few of the hardbounds from Richard Fosmire. Great guy by the way! He was the sales rep for a printer in LA and had work with Dodge for over 20 years. He had printed 7-8 of the viper broachers over the years. According to Richard, they held out some stock loose unbound and sent it off to Arizona to a bindery for the special binding and foilstamping. They got a list and had some of them personalized on the spine, at the opposite end where it is stamped Viper GTS they put a name on some of them for executive distribution and for Team Viper. Richard found the company that made the badges through a guy at Chrysler purchasing and had him make the badges for the broucher.

The designer of the book was a guy name Gary LaGuire. I tried to contact Gary, but never had any luck. However, I did speak with one of the writers of the 1996 brochure name Brad Lang. He worked Gary LaGuire on all the Viper catalogs thru 1997.

Here is what Brad wrote me about the 96 broacher:

The most interesting story about the catalog itself is that the photo of the winding mountain road on the inside front cover was a composite of at least three different photos in California. That road does not exist! The idea was that if you could design the perfect road for the car, what would it look like? (The bridge you see in a similar place in the 1997 catalog is also nonexistent.)

The other interesting sidelight, for me, is that I didn't actually get the drive the car until after the catalog was written! I relied on information from the engineers and marketing staff, and from Gary, of course, who was the real expert.

Brad was also really nice....

That is all for now!

[coupe]

Cool stories and info guys!

If anyone has an extra book, I'd be interested in picking one up.