Vintage Footage: 1996 Viper GTS Coupe Delivery September 1996

[njsteve]

LOL. Someone commented on the video on hugh-toob and it reminded me why I sold it. It was poisonous. No, not venomous, actually poisonous. When it was delivered, the chemical outgassing from the adhesive resin (the body panels were Sheet Molded Compound SMC not fiberglass) used to assemble the structural sub-assemblies was so toxic especially in the Florida heat, that if you left the car in the sun with the windows up, you would vomit and pass out from the vapors inside the car. It was terrible.

Way back when, I worked part time in a body shop so I was use to fiberglass repairs on Vettes and also vacationed near a surfboard shop in CapeCod that did repairs, and the chemical smell was nothing like that: it was 100 times worse.

Dodge was aware of the problem but very tight-lipped about it and would just gaslight you (pun fully intended) and say to park it with the windows rolled down. They never did anything about it. That was why we sold it in late 1999. The outgassing never went away. At the time, my wife was pregnant with our son and there was no way that car was going to be near the house with the toxic cloud it was emanating.

I wonder if they spilled a large amount of improperly mixed/uncured adhesive in between the panels somewhere and that was the cause. It was not isolated to my car, many others owners complained of it as well.