Best ever V10s: the massive 8.0-litre in the wild Dodge Viper

Because the pool of V10s is so much smaller than other engine types, it’s hardly shocking that there’s some interwoven family ties among the greats. Did you know America’s contribution to the V10 hall of fame owes a debt to... Lamborghini? Yes, a decade before Lambo got its own V10 supercar, it helped launch Chrysler’s.

It was Chrysler’s president Bob Lutz who suggested, sometime in 1988, that his organisation should build a modern day successor to the Shelby Cobra, synonymous with Ford V8 power. The windowless roadster’s early test hacks borrowed V8s, but having recently taken a controlling stake in Lamborghini, Chrysler tasked its Italian offshoot with serving up a more exotic engine. Because it had its roots in Chrysler’s existing mega capacity V8s, the resulting V10 – which the Italians cast a fresh aluminium block for – displaced a mighty 8.0 litres. We’re not saying it was overendowed or anything, but the boss of the powertrain project was literally called Dick Winkles.

The engine was a monster. Over 320kg in weight, filling the gargantuan void under the Viper’s colossal clamshell hood under a writhing nest of snaking leads. But the complex crackle glaze looks are deceiving – this isn’t some highly strung racecar heart. Twist the key and it idles in a lumpy, staccato drone – side exit pipes mean each occupant only hears their cylinder bank, so it’s more like two Audi RS3s shouting over one another than a 10 cylinder symphony. The red line calls time at just 6,000rpm because the pistons are the size of dumbbells but it unleashes such absurd torque you could realistically only use third and still scare yourself half to death.

This Viper’s owned by Top Gear’s resident foster parent for the rare and ridiculous, Mark Riccioni, who describes the massive V10 as “pretty agricultural, but so simple, and all that torque’s always a novelty. It doesn’t mind hot starts, it idles without overheating, and starts first time even after months in winter storage". Such dependable reliability is a novelty for our Mark. Trust him to find it in a Viper...

Dodge refined the recipe (slightly) for a second gen Viper in 2003, adding such luxuries as ‘windows’ and ‘a weatherproof roof’. And capacity, eventually resulting in 600bhp from 8.4 litres. With the world’s economy in a doom spiral come 2008 it seemed the Viper’s end was nigh, but Dodge went ahead and engineered a brand new version for 2013 with the V10 duly upped to 640bhp. It soldiered on until 2017 but never sold in the sort of numbers Dodge needed to justify a bespoke super flagship. It, and the factory it was born in, were closed down in 2017.

Dodge Viper 

Price new (1992): $52,000 (£42,120)
Price now: £50,000
Engine: 7,990cc V10, 400bhp @ 4,600rpm, 465Ib ft @ 3,600rpm
Transmission: 6spd manual, RWD
Performance: 0-60mph in 4.6secs, 165mph
Weight: 1,490kg

Photography: Jonny Fleetwood & Alex Tapley