Did the Viper set the HP Bar?

[newby]

A friend and I have been having this discussion for the last week and a half. He owns a 1994 Viper and the other day he said that if it wasn't for the Viper, cars today would not have the HP they have. Basically he's saying the Viper set the Bar for high HP vehicles....which Chevrolet and Ford have finally caught up to.

Just curious if any of you have any thoughts on this..... I gave him stats on a 85 Countach that had 485 HP....stock.... So my reason for disagreeing is that big HP numbers have been around for longer then the Viper.

 

[redshift]

Maybe not for supercars, but I think they had some influence in the $60K - $120K range.

 

[SilverStone05]

I think he's probably right. The Viper did have a huge amount of horsepower way back in the day. The other American muscle has been years trying to catch up.