Echoes of History: The Classic 24 Returns to Daytona
November 12, 2025
Before C27 ever saw a racetrack, the Viper program itself had to be completely reimagined. As endurance racing entered a renaissance not seen since the Cobra era, Dodge recognized an opportunity: GT racing was taking center stage once again. But to win, they needed expertise. Partnerships with Reynard for development and Oreca for construction were the key.
Running in the GT2 category, the Viper GTS-R became something potent: a racer deeply rooted in its road-going DNA. The chassis and suspension were refined where regulations allowed, but at its core, it was still unmistakably a Viper.
Its 7,986 cc all-aluminum V10, required only reliability tuning and intake management to comply with restrictors. Aerodynamics became the true battlefield: a full-width front splitter, a major rear wing, diffuser, additional lighting, side-exit exhausts, and homologation revisions to the nose.
The result debuted in 1997 and instantly reshaped GT2 racing. Oreca and privateer teams put the car on a streak of dominance, achieving FIA GT titles in 1997 and 1998, and a Le Mans GT2 victory in 1998. An Oreca-run Viper even finished 11th overall at Le Mans, a remarkable result for a GT2 car.
When regulations shifted in 1999 and GT2 effectively became the new GT1 class, the GTS-R adapted and kept winning. It took the FIA GT Championship title in 1999, 2001, and 2002, and claimed back-to-back GT1 class wins at Le Mans in 1999 and 2000. At its peak, the Viper was so competitive it routinely threatened prototypes for overall victory.
For the 2000 season, Oreca constructed five factory Viper GTS-Rs. Among them was chassis C27, one of three factory entries in the 2000 Rolex 24 at Daytona. Those three cars would go on to form the most celebrated chapter in Viper racing history.
All three cars became icons, but C27 carried a unique story: a front-row seat to the moment Viper peaked — the year a production-based GT car beat purpose-built prototypes in America’s most important endurance race.
When the Dodge Viper GTS-R arrived in the late 1990s, it did more than revive American endurance racing pride, it redefined what a production-based GT car could accomplish. Born into a shifting era of international GT regulations and built with a rare mix of American muscle and European engineering precision, the GTS-R became one of motorsport’s most feared weapons. And among the cars that wrote its legacy, few stand taller, or remain more untouched, than chassis C27.
The 2000 Daytona victory was a cultural earthquake. Chrysler turned the result into a major marketing push and the Vipers became modern legends. While C27 was not the car that crossed the line first, it was part of the same dominant trio, and its fifth-place finish still placed it at the center of the program’s greatest achievement.
After Daytona, C27 joined the 2000 ALMS campaign and helped the Viper maintain its momentum during the season. But following the ALMS program of that year, the car’s racing life ended. C27 was rebuilt by Oreca and sold to Multimatic for testing purposes. The tests never happened. Instead the car sat in Canada, retired from active competition.
What sets C27 apart today is its condition. Unlike many factory racers that have been rebuilt or modified, C27 has never been restored. It remains as it was when it left the track in 2000. Standing as a true time capsule, an unaltered piece of the Viper program, preserved exactly as it ran when American muscle humbled the prototype world.
Among the dozens of Viper GTS-Rs built, few survived untouched. C27 is a survivor from the greatest chapter in Viper racing history, and one of the most astonishing GT cars ever built.
