At right: Roy Sjoberg, creator of the Dodge Viper, poses in front of his first personally owned Viper at the Detroit Auto Show. It is a prototype built in 1994. Mr. Sjoberg will be Guest of Honor at the St. Ignace Car Show Thursday, June 26, through Saturday, June 28, where Vipers will be among the thousands of cars on display. (Photograph by Sara Sjoberg) "The goal was to make the fastest vehicle on the planet," said Roy Sjoberg, automotive innovator and developer of the Dodge Viper, a sleek muscle car capable of going from zero to 100 miles per hour, and back to zero, in about 13 seconds. Known in the car world as Father Viper, Mr. Sjoberg will be guest of honor at the 2008 St. Ignace Car Show Thursday, June 26, through Saturday, June 28, where Viper clubs will assemble to display their vehicles and bump elbows with the man who made them possible.

Creating the Viper involved much more than designing a fast, new car, Mr. Sjoberg told The St. Ignace News. In 1989, to produce the Viper, he developed a quicker, cheaper way to create cars in general for Chrysler.

The military took notice and worked with Mr. Sjoberg to produce vehicles more quickly and cheaply. He became a consultant to the Advanced Research Projects Agency, a division of the Department of Defense. He also worked with the United States Air Force, and in 1993, owing to Mr. Sjoberg's influence, the Air Force even codenamed an operation "Viper."

A native of Pennsylvania, Mr. Sjoberg, 69, lives in Indian River with his wife, Peg. They have three children.

Now retired from Chrysler and General Motors, he remains active in the car world as the owner of Team R-Squared S LLP, a consulting firm and producer of after-market parts, and as a judge at some of his favorite car shows.

Ed Reavie, organizer of the St. Ignace Car Show, decided to focus Chryslers this year, making Mr. Sjoberg, a longtime supporter, a natural guest of honor.

"He has a resume that just won't quit," Mr. Reavie said.

Mr. Sjoberg and his teams have developed vehicles as diverse as mini-vans and muscle cars. He holds domestic and international patents and has earned three Plastic Parts of the Year awards.

"I was born into the car world," he said. His two brothers, Warren and Richard Steele, were sports-car enthusiasts who raced a 356 Porsche America in the early 1950s.

In 1954, Mr. Sjoberg found himself tinkering with muscle-car parts. His first vehicle, a Crosley station wagon, just didn't cut it. Setting his grocery-getter aside, he got his hands on a 1935 Ford sedan, took it apart, and transformed it into a hot rod, sparking an automotive career. He completed engineering school and a master's degree in business administration at the University of Michigan, and earned Sloan Senior Executive Alumnus status at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, leading to several high-end jobs in the automotive industry.

He particularly enjoyed serving as Corvette-development manager for Zora Arkus-Duntov, known as "Father of the Corvette." Mr. Arkus- Duntov was a guest of honor at the St. Ignace Car Show in the 1982.

In 1985, after 25 years with General Motors, Mr. Sjoberg entered the Chrysler fold, where he made a mark in the automotive world by designing a new team approach to building cars.

The late 1980s were hard times for Chrysler, he said. During the mid-1980s fuel crunch, the company had focused on low-budget, fourcylinder economy cars and needed a boost. Something intriguing was in order, but the company had to work with a fraction of its traditional budget.

"The Viper," he said, "was an opportunity to showcase a sporty, new Dodge."

Given full responsibility for the project, Mr. Sjoberg took the Viper concept from the drawing board to production in less than three years. Normally, a company would spend as much as $2 billion to do so. He did it with about $50 million.

This is how he turned the heads of automotive executives and the military. He had proven himself capable of pulling off something big with a small team and low investment.

To do it, Mr. Sjoberg transformed the physical production process and created a new team approach. Traditionally, cars were built "piecemeal," he said. To bring a new design to production, companies frequently created new tools to build many parts of a given car. Then, they assembled the vehicles piece by piece.

Mr. Sjoberg instituted a "manufacturing by module" process, he said.

He divvied out responsibility for creating entire assemblies that went into the Viper. External suppliers handled certain assemblies, such as axles, and Chrysler teams did the same.

The Viper Team was flexible. It also looked for individual parts built by other companies that came close to the Viper's original concept. Then, they adjusted the design to accommodate them. This was a break from the past.

The amber side-marker lamps, called for in the original design, were a case in point. There were to be four stylish lights on each Viper, but to make them, Chrysler would need to create a $125,000 tool. The Viper Team discovered a similar part sold at a Murray Automotive store, and incorporated it. The team also included a door handle from Ford and a lock system from General Motors.

Some aspects of the Viper had to be unique, however, especially parts critical to its power level and overall appearance, so much of the Viper remained an in-house endeavor.

The Viper appeared in 1992, and Chrysler's president, Lee Iacocca, received the first one.

"He still has it," Mr. Sjoberg said.

At his home in Indian River, Mr. Sjoberg still has his first Viper, too, although he waited until 1994 for a customized version that included a leather interior.

Flexible designing was not the only way Mr. Sjoberg made the Viper possible in tough economic times. He cut costs and improved the process of making cars at Chrysler by creating "nucleus" or "platform" teams. The idea was to gather small group of specialists involved in several areas of the project. This group worked on the car and then dispersed to individual plants to train larger teams, Mr. Sjoberg said.

The platform team concept was a new management form that forced the integration of ideas, he said.

"There used to be something called 'the chimneys' in the car industry. I called it 'barriers" or 'walls,'" he said.

Before the platform-team approach, little communication took place between departments. Engineers would create plans which were "thrown over the wall" to the next responsible group, Mr. Sjoberg explained.

"My idea was to tear down the wall and integrate people and functions," he said.

One of Mr. Sjoberg's favorite aspects of his experience was working with group that created the Viper, the Viper Team, which included people involved in manufacturing, engineering, and purchasing.

He is fond of Viper customers, also.

"They are an intriguing group of people," he said. "They love uniqueness."

Mr. Sjoberg judges at several car events, but his favorite remains the St. Ignace Car Show.

The St. Ignace show, he said, is a "drivers' show," where the owners displaying the cars have restored them themselves, unlike "trailer queen shows," where most owners have hired restorers to do the work.

These days, during the warmer months, Mr. Sjoberg still drives his prototype Viper along the roads of northern Michigan. During the rest of the year, he proudly wears his flight jacket, decorated with the words "Viper One" above his name, given to him by the U.S. Air Force.