We Found The Woman Who Won A Dodge Viper On The Price Is Right. What She Did With It Surprised Us

The Dodge Viper was always a scary thing. It launched in 1992 as a phallic fiberglass wrapper for a massive V10 engine and a six-speed transmission driving the rear wheels. There was no traction control, no airbags, and no ABS. Heck, there were no exterior door handles. A coffin on wheels with 400 horsepower.

The sheer intensity of the Viper made contemporary muscle cars look like ponies, with their creature comforts and titchy V8s. Over the years, the car earned itself a reputation as a bit of a widowmaker. Having all that power on tap with no restraints too often ends in tears. A search for Dodge Viper crashes will turn up a cavalcade of twisted metal, with lives tragically lost along the way.

The Viper was a super-powerful car that could prove fatal for an unprepared driver. So, what better car could there be to offer up to the general public as the ultimate jackpot on The Price Is Right? And what would become of the unsuspecting player who went home with a Viper just waiting to strike? We spoke to one winner and got many answers, though more questions remain.

The First Viper Winner

A man named Peter entered the history books when he appeared on The Price is Right in 2002. It was the golden age of the show, with Bob Barker presiding over the festivities. As the show began in earnest, Peter had the closest bid on a laptop computer, which gained him entry to the first pricing game. He’d be playing Golden Road. Up for grabs was a chaise lounge and a Yamaha WaveRunner jet ski. Oh, and a Dodge Viper, valued at over $74,000.

Peter was an enthusiastic player, wearing a shirt emblazoned with hand-written messages and pumping his fists in adulation. He guessed the correct price of the car—$74,570—and quite literally began jumping for joy. He was, according to my research, the first person to win a Viper on the show.

“You’ve done it! Congratulations! Drive carefully.” – Bob Barker

The win catapulted Peter up the charts of the biggest winners on The Price is Right. Fans keep exhaustive statistics on the show, going as far as noting where Bob Barker entered the show in any given episode (on Peter’s episode, he came in through the audience). The Viper made Peter the biggest single-prize winner in the show’s history, with his total haul coming in at $85,949 worth of prizes. At the time, that made him the third biggest winner ever in total on the show, behind Angela and Danielle who played on October 14, 1993 and January 13, 1992, respectively. Today, he’s the 52nd biggest winner, with inflation significantly boosting prize amounts over the years.

My brain itched with questions, and based on the YouTube comments, I wasn’t the only one. Most consist of people bickering about the vagaries of tax law in respect to game show prizes. One viewer swears that Barker gave away the game by holding the right number in position over the price tag. But my question was more personal—what happened to Peter and the Viper after the cameras stopped rolling?

Calling Peter up for a chat would answer all my questions, but alas, it wasn’t to be. All I had was his first name. The announcer in the intro calls out something along the lines of “Peter Mamama, come on down!” Endless searches for variants like Malama, Manama, and Meinama turned up nothing. Nor did the credits offer any hope.

Did Peter climb behind the wheel of the vicious, powerful first-gen Viper? What did he make of the powerful V10 engine? Perhaps he found a new addiction to gasoline and speed, wielding the Viper like the automotive equivalent of a berserker’s broadsword. Or perhaps, he’d found it all too much, and only used it gently on weekends. Or, perhaps the saddest answer, he’d never driven it at all, maybe due to those brutal gift taxes we’ve all heard so much about.

We have only a tiny clue. One commenter claimed to have known Peter, and stated that he’d kept the car for a few years before he sold it. Another stated that their father worked with Peter, without providing any relevant information.

I reached out to both, to no avail. In any case, assuming both are telling the truth, we know that Peter owned the car for some time, and, at one point, had some kind of gainful employment. If you know Peter, or know of him, let him know we’d love to chat.

There’s Something About Marys

With Peter’s trail having gone cold, I dove back into the archives of data from The Price is Right. I teased out a couple more winners, both named Mary. One took home a yellow Viper, the other, red. Both won later second-generation models, which were modern compared to Peter’s barebones first-gen Viper. Even still, they were imposing machines, with 500 horsepower and still, no traction control.

I watched and rewatched the episodes, looking for clues that could help put me in touch with someone. I dived deep into research and finally turned up a phone number. And just like that, I was talking to Mary, who won a Dodge Viper on September 28, 2006.

Mary won the opening bidding on the game Gold Bars, giving her the opportunity to play Golden Road. She guessed the price of a dinnerware set, then a giant clock.

“Today, we have, at the end of the Golden Road, the most expensive prize ever offered on our daytime show,” crowed Bob Barker. A gorgeous yellow Viper awaited her. She guesses seven as the missing number in the price. Bob teases, stalls for time, then finally pulls the tag. She’s done it—she’s won the Viper. Mary claps and screams with the victory as Bob sends the viewers off to an ad break.

That was eighteen years ago; today, it’s a cool, cloudy afternoon as I speak to Mary about her brilliant win. “I’m pretty sure I just jumped up and down and screamed,” she laughs, speaking of her brilliant win on the show stage.

You might expect that Mary left the set in the yellow Viper seen on screen, but the reality is somewhat different. There are taxes to pay on the winnings [Ed Note: $30 grand according to a story I’ve found online. -DT], and the prizes often come later. Many contestants travel great distances to appear on the show, and it’s not practical for them to try and shoehorn everything into their cabin baggage.

As for the Viper? “It was maybe 3 months,” says Mary. “You have to wait for the show to air. They can’t give you the car until the show has been aired on television.” She also didn’t get the exact car that was seen on screen. “They actually transport the car, they find the one nearest in value to the prize that you won,” she explains. “Mine was yellow on television, but actually they couldn’t find a yellow one in that same price value.” The show called to check that she was happy to accept a black one instead. Mary confirmed, and the Viper was then delivered to a local dealer for her to pick up.

From her first ride, the car made a big impression. “I know the first time I actually got in, you could just hear the car rumble underneath of you … you could feel the power as soon as you turned it over,” she says, with a measure of reverence. “My husband was super excited to be the owner of a Dodge Viper, and he drove it home from the dealership. We were both super thrilled and excited to have the opportunity to drive a Dodge Viper.” She and her husband took turns in the car, with friends and family lining up for rides as well.

By the mid-2000s, the Viper had been out for well over a decade. Even so, it was a major head turner wherever it went, according to Mary. “Everybody around you is looking at you,” she laughs. “You can see it all over their faces, that thrill and excitement.”

She and her husband intended to sell the car, and wanted to keep it as close to brand new as possible. They limited their use to a few fun drives and a date night at a fancy restaurant. “We purposely went down to a fancy area in our neck of the woods,” says Mary. “We used the valet service, and made sure they parked it right outside the restaurants so we could look at it while we were eating dinner.” They enjoyed the car, while preserving its value.

But the big question—did Mary and her husband ever really wring it out? Push the Viper hard? There’s a pause on the line. “Gosh, can I say that to you?” laughs Mary. She’s coy, but it’s clear she enjoyed the car for what it was. “Of course, I mean, it’s a Dodge Viper. I drove it slowly for a Dodge Viper, but fast for any other car,” she chuckles.

She avoided any scary, white-knuckle moments, though, choosing to drive the car with respect and within her own limits.  “I would never say that I would let myself get to that point,” says Mary. “I drove in a manner that I felt like I could handle. I knew if I went faster, which the car is capable of going, that I could lose control, and I just didn’t pass that point.”

“We owned it for probably about 6, maybe 8 months,” says Mary. She didn’t drive the car a whole lot during that time, not wanting to increase the mileage too much. “It was a pretty easy process to sell,” she explains. They found someone looking for a car in their exact configuration and offloaded it without issue. Ultimately, it was because the Viper had become key to something altogether more important in her life.

Something Even Better Than A Viper

At the time of Mary’s appearance on The Price Is Right, she and her husband were in the process of adoption. Any family that’s been through it will tell you the process is long and arduous, and often expensive.

“It’s kind of daunting, trying to adopt, so we were taking a break, on vacation,” Mary explains. In doing so, a wonderful opportunity presented itself. “Getting on The Price Is Right was like, my dream, to meet Bob Barker. It was his last season before he retired.”

Scoring the massive prize was just the magic icing on an already wonderful cake.

Winning a Dodge Viper was never in the plan, but Chrysler’s Hail Mary sportscar from the 1990s would help her and her husband build a family. “We sold the car so that we could afford the adoption,” says Mary. Providence smiled, and Mary and her husband would go on to adopt a second child from the same mother, again helped by the proceeds from the car.

“We still wish we owned a Dodge Viper,” says Mary. “We wish we had been able and in a position to keep it.” But ultimately, she loves it more for the greater gift it gave her. “That’s really… if I retell the story, that’s the story for me,” she says. “I love the Dodge Viper, but I really love my babies.”  I pretty much teared up at that point.

I’m still hoping to reach out to Peter or the other Mary. I want to know what it was like stepping out of their daily driver and into Dodge’s unleashed V10 weapon. One suspects it either made them instant car fans or scared them half to death on partial throttle.

Today, the same kind of thing can still kind of happen. You could give someone a Tesla Model S Plaid, or a bonkers Ferrari or a C8 Corvette. Any one of those would offer devastatingly quick acceleration, all three sure to be quicker than a 2002 Dodge Viper.

And yet, the Dodge wouldn’t be far behind, and it did it all with a manual gearbox and with only your right foot keeping the tires stuck to the road — plus, with no airbags or ABS. You can still hurt yourself in a modern car, but you’re kind of wearing a parachute made out of computers compared to driving the all-analog Dodge of decades past.

In any case, if your neighbor, town crier, or bailiff won a first-gen Viper, from The Price is Right or otherwise, have them drop me a line. I’d love to know what their experience was like—taxes, tire torture, and all.

Image credits: The Price is Right via YouTube screenshot