One thing we look for when searching out cars to feature on our "Craigslist" series is whether or not they are for sale by owner. The idea of a supercar owner posting their own ad and fielding offers just sounds cooler than a sales associate at an upscale dealership doing the same. Unfortunately we rarely find ads posted by private parties. But there are a few exceptions, such as this Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R. Now you can add a 2016 Dodge Viper ACR to that list of exceptions as well.
That's right, someone is tired of their brand new Viper ACR and has put it up for sale on Craigslist in Austin, Texas. Your first thought might be that this is a flip, right? This Viper is listed at $148,900 and the seller included a photo of a receipt (?) that lists the final price at $138,690. That's a difference of about $10,000, but the seller says there have been performance mods done as well. Now, the 8.4-liter V10 engine is plenty powerful in stock form, making 645 horsepower and 600 lb-ft of torque. But according to the seller this ACR now makes 787 horsepower courtesy of a custom tune job done by the aptly named ViperExchange. We recommend asking for dyno readouts before taking that number as the truth, though.
So when you take the tune into account and the fact that this car is only about $10,000 over sticker (pay to cut the line!) the price doesn't seem bad at all. What we can't quite figure is why this seller wants to dump a beauty like the 2016 Viper ACR. This may very well be the Viper's swan song, or at the very least the first verse of its swan song, as the iconic muscle car's future is currently up in the air. It doesn't seem to be damaged in any way and the photo of the gauge cluster shows only 4,534 miles on the odometer. Then there's the fact that the ACR is a track monster, something we covered at length in a past article. Maybe this car is just too much for its current owner to handle?
Whatever the reason, we're glad the owner decided to sell it on Craigslist. We're firm believers that you don't need a dealership to sell an exotic car. You just need to be a reasonably intelligent and patient human. Besides, to us this route is more fun anyway. You get to meet the future owner of your baby and have some fun haggling over the price and considering possible trades. That sounds like time well spent to us, especially when the topic of conversation is the Viper ACR.