Developed by Oreca & Reynard Motorsport in Europe, the Chrysler Viper GTS-R of 1996 was the first real attempt to race the Dodge Viper.

Oreca and Canaska Southwind ran the cars in the IMSA GT Championship and BPR Global GT Series. Both teams went to Le Mans. After neither team achieved any remarkable results the GT1 effort was dropped in favor of a GT2 program.