One to Buy: Triple FIA GT Race-Winning ex-Oreca 1999 Chrysler Viper GTS-R
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Although by the late 1990s Chrysler’s Viper was hardly in the first flush of youth, this seemingly archaic front-engined throwback to another era somehow became the premier GT2 and GTS class racing car of its era.
After Chrysler teamed up with the renowned Oreca outfit in southern France, the Viper GTS-R went on to score back-to-back GT2 class Driver and Team titles in the 1997 and ‘98 FIA GT Championships.
This success continued after the series abandoned its top flight GT1 category owing to a lack of manufacturer support (largely because Porsche and Mercedes-Benz had instigated a developmental death spiral with purpose-built cars that were not at all in the spirit of the regulations). During the next four seasons, Oreca-built Vipers went on to claim FIA GT Driver and Team crown doubles on three further occasions: 1999, 2001 and 2002.
In addition to this already impressive CV, Viper GTS-Rs took a hat-trick of class wins at the Le Mans 24 Hours between 1998 and 2000 along with GTS class titles in the first two years of the American Le Mans Series (1999 and 2000).
Currently on offer at the Fantasy Junction showroom in Emeryville, California, is one of the most significant cars to have played a role in the Viper’s rise to history maker: chassis C20.
Constructed as one of Viper Team Oreca’s two primary cars for the 1999 FIA GT Championship, C20 made a big splash by scoring back-to-back wins in its first two outings: the Hockenheim and Hungaroring 500km events in which it was driven by Jean-Philippe Belloc and Dominique Dupuy. Later that year, Belloc was joined in C20 by David Donohue and the car took its third victoy of the year at the Watkins Glen 3 Hours.
Between 2001 and 2006, C20 continued to race successfully, mostly in the French GT Championship, initially by the Dominique Dupuy Organisation (DDO) and later by Autovitesse.
More recently, the car has been restored back to its 1999 Watkins Glen 3 Hour-winning trim.
