We don’t make it a habit of writing up any old ad for a car company, but this captivating video on the SRT Viper is a bit different. It doesn’t just quote tired facts and figures; it gets at the heart of why we love sports cars. And that makes it a bit special.
The ad opens with squabbling kids in the back of a 1960s station wagon the size of Kansas, the voiceover explaining that we all know “what a horseless carriage is.” Some cars are just that, a means of transportation and no more.
But the commercial rolls on. We see the same kids growing into teenagers and gaining that talisman of independence, the drivers’ license. Then they’re presented with an age-old teenage dilemma: Love or cars?
Then we move to shots of the SRT Viper under construction and the smoky voice of the narrator explains the answer. For some of us, love and cars go hand-in-hand. We feel an emotional connection to the car, as if it were a living thing.
We feel this both because we are stupid and because great engineers and autoworkers have breathed part of their own souls into the countless metal and carbon shells that roll off the assembly line.
The commercial ends on beauty shots of the Viper as it screams defiance from the road.
This commercial is great because it speaks both to what has always been the best quality of the Viper: Its personality. And that personality gives it soul, which is a indefinable quality that anyone who is really passionate about cars looks for in a car.
It’s this personality and soul that makes gearheads torture themselves with Italian and British cars that break down every time there is a week in the month.
Now none of this might matter because the Viper has been nearly immobile on Chrysler’s showroom floors. But after the massive sales uptick following Ron Burgundy’s ad campaign for the Durango, you never know. Maybe this well-crafted Viper ad will move some snakes.
