The 2009 Dodge Viper SRT10 Roadster. First gear alone is worth nearly 60 mph, and you still have five gears to go.

Ingo Barenschee

At 5,000 rpm, no one hears your screams in the venomous new Dodge Viper.

The Viper’s giant 600-horsepower V-10 bellows like Satan’s bull, sending quivers through the plentiful plastic panels inside the car. Heat radiates from the long, beautifully louvered hood — a reminder of the violence on the other side. Something in the rear clanks occasionally, like chains in a basement.

Speed simply erupts from the angry Viper. First gear alone is good for nearly 60 mph — and you still have five gears to go. Zero to 100 takes 7.9 seconds — about what a normal car needs to hit 60.

Even on mild 60-degree days, the Viper is thick as Houston inside, simmering in heavy horsepower.

It is pure hot-rod heaven.

Pardon me. I sometimes get a little sentimental about the ’09 Viper SRT-10 convertible I had recently. Dipped in deep purple paint with dual silver stripes cutting down the center of the hood and trunk — a $3,000 option, incidentally — the Viper was an eye-popping teenage boy’s fantasy sprung to life.

It sparked some of my fancies, too. But if you want to live this loud dream, you’d better get moving now on cashing in what’s left of your Wall Street-ravaged portfolio.

Sadly, the Viper appears to have a future maybe more uncertain than mine — or that of struggling Chrysler LLC, the parent company of Dodge. Conceived in 1992, with heavy involvement from legendary racer Carroll Shelby, the track-ready Viper may be discontinued or sold after 2011, according to some media reports.

Last year, Dodge sold only about 1,200 Vipers — slim pickings for even a halo car.

Spokesman Nick Cappa said Chrysler has seen a “significant amount of interest” in the Viper and is reviewing three inquiries.

There is no timetable for a decision, he said.

“It probably doesn’t make good business sense to devote a lot of resources to a 600-horsepower, low-volume car at a time when there are other needs,” Cappa said.

In January, in a curious spike given the shockingly weak state of the auto industry, Viper sales shot up 73 percent — helped some by incentives and the possibility that the Viper could become a collectible car.

The one I had certainly looked the part. With purple paint, a black convertible top and polished wheels, the car was about as subtle as a .357 Magnum with the hammer back.

But the Viper really is smartly styled, I think, with its low, wide body, perfectly sized hood scoop and sculpted sides.

I could live without the side pipes that exit in front of the rear wheels, heating up the door sills so much that they are warm to the touch. (And the Viper is so low, my method of exit was to put my palm on the sill and use it as leverage to swing my legs out.)

From the rear, the car looks like two fenders and a modest trunk squatting over tires wide enough to be declared an environmental hazard by most Democrats. The Viper wears demure 275/35-18s up front and steamroller 305/30-19s in the rear.

Savor the view. There’s not much to see once you squeeze into and over the highly bolstered seats. The footwells were so cramped that my size 8s sometimes got lodged between pedals, and everything — from the dashboard to the door panels — was slathered in boring black plastic.

The seats, which looked fine, had gray cloth inserts, as did the door panels. Moreover, the three-spoke steering wheel fell nicely to hand.

But this is definitely not the interior you expect in a car with a $94,215 asking price. Don’t fret too much about it, though. Just push the big red starter button to the right of the steering wheel and cinch down that seatbelt.

The Viper’s massive all-aluminum 8.4-liter V-8 springs to life with a bellow that sounds as if you stepped on some large animal in a dark cave. It awakens agitated.

Though the Viper looks big, it weighs a reasonable 3,450 pounds — giving you an astounding power-to-weight ratio of 5.75 pounds per horsepower. Remember when 10 pounds per horsepower was a really big deal?

But Dodge opted to fit the Viper with extremely high 3.07 rear gears, so even with 560 pound-feet of torque, you have to give it some throttle to get it moving.

Just don’t prod it too hard — the car has no traction control. Once, on a quiet, divided four-lane road, I nailed the Viper in first and second gears, finally backing off when I got tired of fighting wheel spin and axle tramp at speeds over 50 — not to mention the Viper’s awful exhaust note. If you like the flat, harsh sound of a Fed Ex delivery truck, you’ll adore the Viper.

Learn to live with the noise because it indicates big things are happening at the back wheels. The Viper will rip to 60 in 3.7 seconds and destroy a quarter-mile in 11.7 seconds at 124 mph, according to Motor Trend.

The downside of all that power, naturally, is 13 miles per gallon in the city, 22 on the highway. (I’ll still take the horsepower, thanks.)

With its ideal 50-50 weight distribution — half the car’s weight is over its front wheels and half over the rear — the Viper is also surprisingly light on its feet in corners.

Below 50 mph, this is not a happy car. Always a stiff ride, the Viper stumbles over bumps at slow speeds, setting off a chorus of buzzes and bangs. But give it some boot — aided by a positive, slick-shifting six-speed manual — and the Viper sprints flatly through corners with grace and balance.

The steering is a willing conspirator. A little bit on the heavy side, it is quick and precise, providing good feedback at street speeds. Likewise, the brakes feel strong enough to stop a speeding locomotive — which sort of seems appropriate.

I’ll certainly miss the Viper, if it comes down to that. It is an expensive, flawed and impractical vehicle.

But it’s a wonderfully exaggerated artifact from the 20th century — and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.