Chris Runge has a talent for giving old cars a new spark using his hands. He has handcrafted several automobiles before, and his recent creation, the Veleno (the Italian for the word venom), could very well be the slickest of his works yet. In case you missed it, you're looking at a re-bodied 2004 Dodge Viper SRT10 with 4,000 miles on the odometer.

Even Jay Leno was amused with Runge's work, enough for him and his Veleno to get featured on the former's show on YouTube. During the interview, Runge shared that he spent 5,000 hours finishing his handcrafted masterpiece. He designed and built the aluminum body himself, giving it a Veleno-esque personality.

To make the car look as unique as possible, Runge revamped almost the entire exterior and interior but kept the Viper's stock V10 engine. The only features retained from the original design were the windshield, brakes, and stereo system - though that last one has been upgraded with a Bluetooth system.

His first approach to making the Veleno a reality was to use 3D scans to design the car. Runge then sent those scans to a designer in the UK - an approach that didn't work since the scans were deemed useless. He then used a technique called lofting to draft the Veleno's body. He did this by manually measuring the curves in a grid, which were needed to digitize the design. Unfortunately, this strategy still didn't work.

Despite these two dead ends, Runge didn't give up. With the assistance of his son, he went to make an aluminum tube buck to shape the car - a process that took them around three weeks to complete. Talk about passion.

With aluminum sheets getting hammered, gas-torched, and shaped, Runge finally achieved the Veleno's magnificent, swoopy body that was finished using an English Wheel, a tool used for shaping metal. It even came with a functional hood scoop and air ducts.

Runge said that his goal for the Veleno is not to have a trace of the Dodge Viper's past, which we think he managed but only after 208 days of dedication and hard work.