We went to New Jersey to find a Dodge Viper mysteriously abandoned in a parking lot

We found this abandoned Dodge Viper in the middle of nowhere in New Jersey.

This abandoned Viper has become one with the vegetation, and it’s clearly been here for a while.

As a car lover, nothing is as gut-wrenching as finding a great car that somebody left to rot for some reason.

Especially if it’s a valuable piece of American car history.

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The New Jersey location where this Dodge Viper is resting

We were driving down a random, no-name highway somewhere in New Jersey when we found this car.

The thing is, in order to drive from NYC to Atlantic City, you first have to get out of New York City proper.

While doing that, and while checking Google Maps, there’s a town with a peculiar name that might stand out on the map, Sparta.

Technically that means heading in the wrong direction, because Atlantic City is south of NYC while Sparta is sort of north-west of the Big Apple.

But we live in an Instagram-friendly world, which is exactly the sort of universe where one might suggest driving to Sparta just so you can do some ‘Instagram work’, likening the NJ town (actually a township) to, well, ancient Sparta.

On your way there, you might need fuel, which is why we stopped and how we found this parking lot next to an unmarked gas station.

The parking lot is a resting place for at least a dozen vehicles that, for whatever reason, must’ve been owned by somebody who, at some point, simply said ‘nah, that’s it, I’m parking it there and moving on to greener pastures’.

Including this Viper.

The car has been here for a while

This Viper, an RT/10 model, has clearly been here for a while.

It doesn’t look like it’s been damaged in a crash, but nature can be an excellent timekeeper, so when something has vegetation and weeds growing around, in and out of it, you know it’s been there for longer than a couple of days.

Atlantic City, a gambling city, is only 150 miles away from Sparta, so we’re going to go ahead and put our betting hat on.

We reckon this may have been somebody’s ‘project’.

But then life happens, and cars like this can easily become animals that you need to keep feeding with more money, and so this person probably abandoned the idea.

Sad.

The Viper is special, but not rare

Like so many other American icons, the Viper is special, but actually not that rare.

Obviously we’re not talking Toyota Corolla or Ford F-150 numbers, but Dodge still produced at least 32,000 units.

For a car with a six-figure price tag and a massive V10 in it, that’s not nothing.

It also explains why some people occasionally decide to turn Vipers into limos or even off-roaders.

Now, that’s heathen stuff, but so is letting a Dodge Viper RT/10 rot away in Sparta, New Jersey.