Tag Archives: GTS-R

Bookended With Class Wins – Dodge Viper GTS-R #C7

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Like the Forent Moulin’s Dodge Viper GTS-R #C30 I looked at last year today’s featured Chrysler example chassis #C7 was originally built for the French Oreca entrant.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Oliver Bouquet, Silverstone Classic,

In 1997 the Viper Oreca team entered the car in 10 events with Philippe Gache and Olivier Beretta as #C7’s principle drivers who achieved a season high 10th place overall, 1st In GT2, on the cars debut at the Hockenheimring in April.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Oliver Bouquet, Silverstone Classic,

For the 1997 Le Mans Prequalifying weekend the following month later Phillipe and Oliver were joined in the #61 Oreca entry by Soheil Ayari and between them they were classified 44th.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Oliver Bouquet, Silverstone Classic,

For the 24 Hour race at Le Mans in June 1997 Soheil was moved over to the #62 Oreca entry replaced in the #61 Oreca entry by Dominique Dupuy. #C7 started from 34th on the grid with a 37th fastest qualifying time of 4m 4.654s, but retired after an accident on it’s 264th lap.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Oliver Bouquet, Silverstone Classic,

#C7’s final two appearances were at Le Mans in 1998, Dominique Dupuy was joined in the car now renumbered #53 by Justin Bell for the Prequalifying Weekend during which they were classified 36th.

For the 1998 Le Mans 24 Hour race a month later Dominique was taken out of the car after the preliminary qualifying session and replaced by Luca Drudi and David Donohue who with Justin started 33rd on the grid with a time of 4m 05.648s.

They finished the race 11th overall and bookended the cars career with another GT2 class win.

The car is seen in these photographs taken at last years Silverstone Classic with Oliver Bouquet at the wheel.

Thanks for joining me on this “Bookended With Class Wins” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psychoontyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Brand Presence – Dodge Viper GTS-R #C30

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In order to promote it’s new for 1995 Dodge Viper GTS Coupé and compete in the plethora of GT Championships across the globe in the late 1990’s Chrysler sanctioned the construction of GTS-R race variant to be overseen and maintained by the French Race and Engineering team Oreca.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Florent Moulin, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

The bare chassis for the Oreca built GTS-R’s were fabricated by the British company Reynard who had a long established reputation for building open wheelers from Formula Ford all the way up to Indycars. There reputation was enhanced by the fact that every time they entered a new formula they won first time out.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Florent Moulin, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

The 8 litre / 488 cui V10 motors were lightly modified to improve output and reliability, in all 5 prototypes and a further 52 Chrylser Viper GTS-R’s were built between 1996 and 2005.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Florent Moulin, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

In the USA the cars were run as Dodge Vipers while in Europe where the Dodge brand did not have any official market presence the cars were run as Chrysler Vipers, with the exception being at the 2007 Nurburgring 24 Hour race where ’99,’01 and ’02 winners Zakspeed entered their Viper, which finished second, as a Dodge to mark the arrival of the Dodge brand in Europe.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Florent Moulin, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

Today’s featured car chassis #C30, seen at Silverstone in the hands of Classic car dealer Florent Moulin, appears to have been built in for the 2000 season and raced by Viper Team Oreca in the US, as a Dodge and Europe, as a Chrysler, by Jean-Philippe Belloc, Anthony Beltoise, Ni Amorim, Tommy Archer, David Donohue, Marc Duez, Patrick Huisman and Boris Derichebourg.

#C30’s best result was in the 2000 Grand Prix of Sanoma where Tommy Archer and David Donohue recorded a class win and 8th overall in the Dodge branded racer.

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