Dodge Copperhead Concept

The copperhead is one of the most-bitten-by snakes in North America and one of the least fatal. Its venom is real but rarely lethal; its bite is a hospital visit rather than a funeral. It is, in every meaningful sense, the entry-level pit viper.

This is exactly what Dodge was proposing. The Copperhead concept of 1997 was a long-nosed, short-tailed roadster with a 2.7-litre V6, aimed squarely at the space where the Mazda MX-5 and the BMW Z3 were selling in numbers the Viper could not dream of. Where the Viper was an argument, the Copperhead was an invitation.

It was, in the opinion of this Ophidiary, the prettiest car Chrysler drew in the 1990s, and the 1990s were a decade in which Chrysler drew extremely well. The wheels sat at the absolute corners. The cabin was pushed back almost to the rear axle. The whole thing had the low-slung, deliberately unhurried proportions of a snake basking on warm asphalt, which is precisely what copperheads spend their afternoons doing.

It never reached production. Chrysler merged with Daimler, the concept-car budget became a rounding error in a spreadsheet written in a different language, and the small roadster died. The name migrated into a video game — where it appeared under a generic title, its serpent quietly stripped for licensing reasons — and then into the long list of things that would have been good.

The Ophidiary holds a small annual observance for the Copperhead. Not because it was great. Because it was reasonable, and reason is the rarest quality in this entire bestiary.