The Viper ACR will do that to you. There is nothing "halfway" about this car. Mind you, I’ve never loved the regular Viper. Sure, the power is sensational and the chassis wrenches out go-kart moves, but it’s always seemed as if you give up too much in refinement and poise in return for numbers that match or barely exceed those of other supercars. The ACR is different. Forty pounds lighter than the regular Viper, with ten times the downforce at 150 mph, springs twice as stiff, and Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires that stick like a glob of chewed Dentyne under your shoe, the "American Club Racer" lifts the Viper into an altogether more righteous realm. The ACR is one of those cars that etches itself into the most primal folds of your cerebral cortex. Drive it -- really hard -- and it writes new lines of code in your brain for performance. For awe. For fear.

You don’t want to mess with this machine; the ACR doesn’t suffer hot-shoe pretenders gladly. Computerized chassis safeguards? Not here, bub. The only electronic nanny is standard ABS. Do something stupid -- say, lift suddenly off the gas in a high-g turn -- and the rear end will whirl around and sail for Hawaii. Have a nice cruise. So lofty are the limits, any step over the line risks the kinetic release of an airplane crash.

Ah, but when you get into the ACR’s rhythm…suddenly you’re sucked into the kaleidoscopic finale of "2001: A Space Odyssey." The Viper ACR doesn’t roll or slide in turns; it Hoovers through them, the chassis challenging your steady right foot to press down harder, your left foot crushing the dead pedal as if it were the unlocked door to an angry bear’s cage, your eyeballs straining in an invisible arm-wrestle with a steroid-pumped Sir Isaac Newton (Dodge engineers report sustained 1.5-g cornering loads at speed). That leviathan carbon-fiber rear wing may look like an accessory from Bruce Wayne’s costume box, but there’s no denying its power. Huge StopTech brakes combine with the nearly slick Michelins to make full-effort stops feel like being clothes-lined. Few cars without numbers painted on their doors can deliver such overwhelming inputs to your neural synapses, such a glorious thrashing to your gizzard. This isn’t transportation. This is being transported.

The 8.4-liter V-10 needs no upgrades to motivate the ACR in ways that make mortal cars look almost powerless. On tap are 600 horses, good for 0 to 60 mph in around 3.5 seconds. The Tremec six-speed has been revised for crisper feel, but with 560 pound-feet of torque flowing through it there’s often little reason to row the lever. Leave the thing in fourth and it’ll churn along just about any twisty country two-lane without complaint. In sixth at 80 mph, the rpms are so low the engine could be ticketed for sleeping at the wheel.

Everything about the ACR leaves you breathless: the ultra-quick steering, the crushing acceleration, the suspension’s piano-string tautness, cornering transitions that make you feel like you’ve fallen into a pinball machine. The Corvette Z06, for all of its virtues, cannot duplicate the ACR’s electrifying, race-car moves (we’ll see if the new ZR1 can defend its little brother’s honor). Nissan GT-R? Forget it: The Viper ACR will leave its solenoids and software bugged out by rubber dust. Porsche GT-2? Getting warmer, but Porsche’s masterpiece (at twice the Dodge’s $98,110 price) plays by Marques of Queensbury rules. The ACR is strictly UFC. Dare to get in the ring with it, dude, and you’re going to get pummeled.

I haven’t driven another car in recent memory that’s felt so utterly brutal yet so unfailingly honest. You want speed? The ACR delivers it like French roast coffee administered via syringe. True, with its adjustable KW shocks and tunable aero bits, the ACR really is a ringer, a thinly disguised race car. But, hey, the DOT says it can play in the street with everything else, so fair is fair.

I’m keeping a record of my Viper ACR drive in my personal journal. It’ll be under the heading, "Cars I Love That Make Me Feel Like Five Minutes Ago I Said Something Stupid To Mike Tyson."

Article key :  2009 Dodge Viper ACR, Dodge Viper ACR,     Glass dodge viper, Dodge viper, Dodge viper logo, 2008, 2009.