1994 Viper RT-10 for sale for $13,500. Nice price or crack pipe?

For many cars being branded with a salvage title can mean the kiss of death to its potential to sell. You’ll need to determine if that’s the case with this Nice Price or Crack Pipe Viper, or if its low, low price means that today death is only offering a peck on the cheek.

Have you ever wanted to experience sheer unadulterated brutality and painful death but never seem to have the chance to run into Mike Tyson and tell him that he has a stupid little girl voice and that his face tattoo is actually the Swahili symbol for a cat's anus? Well, have I got an alternative for you!

Today’s 1994 Dodge Viper RT-10 is representative of that marque’s first generation, which is notable for having more horsepower than the Prussian Army, and none of the driving aids to help keep you from using those horses to turn the car, and yourself, into a horrifying mess of Guy Fieri’s hair proportions. Seriously, piloting an old Viper is like driving a regular car while Duffman obsessively pelvic thrusts you in the face, it's just that wild and demanding.

This one adds to the excess by having had a Paxton blower fitted to the 8-litre Hammer of Thor under its massive clamshell hood. Everything else here seems pretty stock, right down to the Cuisinart three-spokes and the 6-cog Tremac backing up the ginormous 10 cylinder mill.

This being an early RT-10, it has side exhaust to keep your ankles warm in winter, as well as a fabric roof and side curtain setup, the complexity and efficiency of which will either make this a fair-weather friend or require a boy scout as riding mechanic. That second option would make you a total creeper, so it would probably be best just to stay out of the rain.

Everybody's probably familiar with what was left off the Viper, likely more so than with what was included. There's no ABS, no traction control, launch control, or even your grandma in the passenger seat to tell you to 'be careful dear.'

Even with all that stuff left off, the Viper with its brutal power and ostentatious physical presentation intact still typically commands a pretty healthy chunk of coin of the realm. Not this red serpent however, which is being offered for $13,500, barely half what you might expect of one that's actually running and not peppered with bullet holes and still housing a former drug cartel boss.

Why is this one so freakin' cheap? Well, like Heidi Montag, it has a reconstructed title. That's also known as a salvage title, which is also known as once having an owie that the insurance company thought would be more expensive to fix than the whole car was worth. There are other reasons a car might have a salvage title - theft recovery, demonic possession, permanent stench of butsecks (man that's an old one!), but whatever the taint, it's never going to be a good one.

It's not like the present owner is going to tell you that the salvage title is due to the family of Leprechauns that live in the trunk and shower the car's owners with gold. That's just never going to happen, no matter how much you might enjoy a golden shower from a tiny Irishman.

In fact, this salvage Viper's seller doesn't let on as to what the reason is for the scarlet lettered title on this 22,000 miler, but the price kind of speaks for itself. He does say that it has a busted speedo and is in need of a LOWER CONTROL. Hopefully that won't kill the deal. What do you think, is $13,500 cheap enough for a blown Viper that you think someone should just roll the dice? Or, is the title of this Viper actually Snake Eyes?

You decide!