Wearing a Detroit T-shirt, Ralph Gilles, president and CEO of the SRT brand, unveiled the bright red Viper on stage as hundreds of journalists looked on.

Gilles said in an interview that the new Viper has stability control and a new "launch control button" to speed the first-gear rollout. It will be the first Viper to have cruise control and will among the fastest vehicles in the world.

The new Viper has a full leather interior and is about 100 pounds lighter than the last version. It will have 640 horsepower, 600 pounds of torque and will top out at 206 miles per hour, about 5 miles per hour faster than the previous version.

"It's the highest naturally aspirated torque engine in the world," Gilles said. "It makes more torque off idle than most cars make at full power."

Gilles said the Viper represents what Chrysler is all about.

"I think (the Viper) represents the soul of the company," Gilles said, noting the intense interest in the car among fans, journalists and other auto company executives. "The car is a rock star all by itself."

Chrysler halted production of the Dodge Viper in June 2010 and wasn't sure if it would keep the brand alive, Gilles said. More than 100 owners showed up unannounced on the last day to herald the car and Chrysler held an impromptu car show. "No one knew if it would continue," Gilles said.

The Viper has been a source of American pride, Gilles said.

"Here it is duking it out with some of the best brands in the world. Here's this ruffian American doing it with the big boys," Gilles said. "There's a little bit of this Rocky Balboa story in there that people just love."

Chrysler rebranded the Viper under its SRT brand.

The company is reopening its Conner Avenue plant in Detroit, which will employ about 100 workers to build the Viper by hand. About 50 workers have completely refurbished and cleaned the plant, painting everything white — even the ceiling. The plant added some robotics but it is still largely hand built, Gilles said.

Chrysler considered building the Viper at plants outside of Detroit and even considered importing frames from Europe, Gilles said.

The company began building "full representational" prototypes this week and will launch the vehicle this fall, Gilles said.

In late 2008, Chrysler announced it was putting its Viper brand up for sale as it struggled to stay alive. Gilles noted that was under private equity owners Cerberus Capital Management LP, which he dismissed as the "three-headed dog era."

The company has kept costs low as it redesigned the Viper, and built test cars by collecting and repurposing show cars. "Our budget was pretty tight," he said.

Chrysler started production of the Viper in 1991 and built about 30,000; about 26,000 are still on the roads. Chrysler showed 700 Viper owners in late 2010 a potential new Viper in Utah and no pictures leaked out.

The company has sold 1,500 on average a year and just over 2,000 in a good year. Gilles said he expects to expand exports of the Viper around the world over the prior version. "The car's been designed for every corner around the globe," he said. Gilles said the Viper is profitable, but the company isn't targeting big sales. "We're not obsessed about volume," Viper said.

The plant can build up to 2,200 a year — and Gilles said current Viper owners will get first crack at the new model.

Gilles compares the Viper to the Porsche 911 and updating an iconic vehicle.

Told that Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne had praised the vehicle in a Detroit News interview last month, Gilles laughed. "He didn't tell me that," he said. "That made my day. He's like your father. You just don't know if the grades are good enough."

dshepardson@detnews.com