2014 SRT Viper “Body and Soul” Commercial—We Have Contact

I’m not a Viper guy. They’re hugely capable and their owners sure seem to love them, but for me they’re too big, too brutal. I’ve driven Vipers both on and off the track and clearly they have strong hearts and mighty muscles, but I’ve always had trouble making the man/machine connection with these cars. For me, they lack what the Italians call un’anima vivente—a living soul. It took this commercial to make me rethink that.

We open on two kids fidgeting in the back seat of an early-’60s Dodge station wagon—I’m sure at least one of you will tell me the year, model, and specific VIN—while Mom and Dad struggle up front with an old-school paper map, trying to figure out where they are. So right off the bat, the commercial sets an emotional hook—who among us didn’t live that scenario in one form or another?

Cut to a bunch of awkward teenagers going through what was for us the ultimate rite of passage: getting your driver’s license. And then the hook sets deeper as we see a series of scenes depicting the dilemma faced by many a hormone-pumping high-school boy: Which do we lust for more, love or cars? By now, most red-blooded car guys watching the spot know that SRT is talking directly to us. How can you not relate to riding shotgun while your buddy melts the tires in the high-school parking lot? How can you not remember hanging posters (or pages ripped from Car and Driver) on your bedroom wall while thinking, someday, I’ll have one of these of my own . . .?

This is followed by a simple yet eloquent love story: “Every driving machine has a body, but for a cube of metal to become a living, breathing entity worthy of our interest or passion and our drool, it must have a soul. So it’s up to the maker of the machine to breathe life into its creation. The machine cannot say it’s greater than the maker, nor can the maker say the machine is beneath him. Because through the process, the two have become one.” But it’s the Viper itself that gets the last word: a deep, visceral growl that says, “C’mon, let’s go out and play. We’ll have fun.”