Kumho creates bespoke ultra-high-performance tyres for Dodge Viper ACR

The beast is back! On May 9 Dodge unveiled the latest, and without doubt greatest, Viper ACR - a hand-built street-legal race car that will be available for sale in the US from September of this year.

Dodge's Tim Kuniskis commented: "Our aim is to arm our enthusiasts with the ultimate Viper track car that will dominate road courses around the world." To achieve this, the company has endowed the 2016 model year Dodge with significant aerodynamic and suspension upgrades, new carbon ceramic brakes with six-pot calipers, and Kumho ultra-high-performance tyres complete with ACR logo embossed on the sidewall.

The Kumho ECSTA V720 tyres in 295/25ZR19 size on the front and 355/30ZR19 on the rear are claimed by Dodge to provide the largest combined contact patch of any production car. Designed and developed by Kumho especially for the new Viper ACR, they feature unique tread patterns and compounds front to rear, and are understood to have achieved lap times up to 1.5 seconds faster than those of dedicated race tyres during back-to-back testing; also to allow sustained cornering loads of up to 1.5g.

At the heart of the awe-inspiring hand-built powertrain is a 645bhp version of Dodge's all-alloy 8.4-litre V10 engine, the 600 lb ft torque of which is thought to be the most of any naturally-aspirated sports car unit. One thing's for sure, the latest Viper ACR (American Club Racer) has much to live up to, as it follows in the wheel tracks of an illustrious lineage dating back to 1999, the last version of which captured the production car lap record around the infamous N?rburgring Nordschleife circuit with a time of 7 minutes 12.13 seconds. In case there were any doubts, Kuniskis added: "This car is not a 1-3 lap track special. You can run it all day without any tail-off in performance."