Ok I will be the voice of reason here:
I can understand you wanting a Viper, hell, I want one and I guess everyone here wants one too.
BUT
Even if you say you are a cautious driver - which I believe you - certain cars just make you do stupid things, and I don't want to exclude anyone from the blame game here, MXM killed his dream car after 11 days, because he kept following someone with better road knowledge and ended in a ditch. His Seven is comparable to a viper, RWD and no electronics. And MXM had more driving experience than you, even on Ice and snow....I almost killed myself in our 1 Series with fucking 120hp, I was going up an onramp corner and a deer jumped out in front of me, I swerved (stupid mistake), ended up sliding on the Autobahn, over 2 lanes and back, tail kicked out in both directions and I barely kept it on the road. That was WITH ABS and DTC. Adunaphel went sideways through Br?nnchen by accident in his 190E, almost killing some less important #gear members....Ice crashed while avoiding a deer on wet roads etc...
As well, the Viper is a sort of car that is uncontrollably as soon as shit goes wrong. I mean, even if it is not your fault, go round a corner at normal speed, someone jumps on road, the Viper WILL snap and you will go sliding. I talked to guys at the Ring who drove the Viper Ringtaxi (Stock Viper with a huge wing and rollcage) and they said "basically, if the rear comes round uncontrolled, take hands off steering wheel, slam brakes, prepare for impact. The rear wheels are just too fucking wide to regain control again".
For me, the Viper is a car which will bring you to the limits of how well you can handle a car and kill you the second you overstep your skill. I know you want one, but for the love of god, please don't get one now. Drive that Corsica for some months, then get a slighly better car, best with RWD and stick, learn to drive that. Don't get an AWD car, it will fuck you sideways once you go to RWD
Seriously, you don't imagine the difference in handling between a FWD car and a RWD car - just look at what happens if you downshift without rev-matching in a RWD car, I remembered that suddenly when our 1 Series kicked his tail out sideways while downshifting on snow...and if you do that in a Viper, you are toast.
My best advice however: Do security trainings, where you learn how to handle a car for example on mixed surfaces, skidpads etc.. That saved my ass a couple of times now and is one of the best things I put money into since driving a car. In these videos, a plate moves your rear wheels to the side while going over it and you have to catch the car and avoid obstacles on a snow-like surface. Video is from 2005 btw, car looks different now
[video=youtube;Ulown-yS4-o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulown-yS4-o[/video] [video=youtube;9lCT13-A_AE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lCT13-A_AE[/video]
Maybe do some autocross to rack up handling skill, I am sure equiraptor & co. can tell you something about that, and after you racked up some experience, maybe go for a Viper. Otherwise I predict a sudden end of Viper007Bond