This is the new LEGO® Technic™ Dodge Viper GTS-R, it’s an 805 piece model designed for people aged 11 and up, though as with most Technic models it will likely be very popular with adults interested in engineering.
The Viper GTS-R was a hugely capable road car, but where it really made a name for itself was out on track. It took a slew of class wins at the grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans, as well as an outright victory at the Daytona 24 Hours, and a couple of championships to boot.
This is the new LEGO® Technic™ Dodge Viper GTS-R, it’s an 805 piece model designed for people aged 11 and up, though as with most Technic models it will likely be very popular with adults interested in engineering. Image courtesy of LEGO®.
History Speedrun: The Dodge Viper GTS-R
Chrysler unveiled the Dodge Viper GTS-R during Monterey Car Week in August of 1995, announcing a limited-production racing car for worldwide GT competition with more than 700 bhp available from its 8.0 liter V10. Company president Bob Lutz called it “a no holds-barred, competition car for the world’s great events.” And that wasn’t hyperbole.
The GTS-R filled a gap the original Viper RT/10 was never really designed for – the roadster had been designed to turn heads on the street while also going exceedingly fast in a straight line. It wasn’t designed to compete at the top level of motorsport. It was the Viper GTS coupe that landed in showrooms in 1996 with 450 bhp in street tune, along with a stiffer structure, that gave Dodge a workable foundation for a factory race program that could feasibly win against the best in the world. But there were plenty of doubters.
Chrysler developed the race version working with the French motorsport outfit Oreca as its European partner, while Reynard Motorsport fabricated the bodywork. Chrysler constructed the first 13 chassis in Detroit, though two of them, C9 and C10, went to Oreca as rolling shells for completion. From 1998, assembly and race preparation moved entirely to the French firm. One key detail set the race car apart from the road-going coupe it was based on – the side exhausts of the original RT/10 returned, a feature the road-going GTS never had, even as an optional extra.
The car’s competition debut came in 1996, and the best of the four Viper Le Mans entries that year finished 10th overall. When the cars moved to the GT2 class in 1997, the program really started to find its feet, with class wins in seven of 11 FIA GT races and the drivers’ title for Justin Bell, then nine of 10 wins in 1998 along with a first class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
In 1999 Vipers filled the first six places in the GTS class at Le Mans and collected the FIA GT championship and the American Le Mans Series GTS class title. The 2000 season closed the factory era with a third straight Le Mans class win for Olivier Beretta, Karl Wendlinger, and Dominique Dupuy, plus an overall victory at the Daytona 24 Hours, where the Oreca-run GT car outlasted a field of faster but less reliable prototypes and the leading Corvette C5-R.
The LEGO® Technic™ Viper GTS-R
LEGO’s version of the Viper GTS-R arrived in August this year, it’s Technic set number 42234 – an 805 piece model at 1:16th scale and 11.5 inches, or almost one foot long. The car is finished in white bodywork with twin blue stripes running the full length of the body with black wheels, and a prominent rear wing.
When you open the hood, just like on the real car, you’ll find a V10. Unlike the original though, you can see its 10 pistons rising and falling on five crank discs as the rear wheels spin the engine through a rear differential. Steering works through a “hand-of-God” gear on the top of the car’s roof, and both doors open.
Fitting all of this under a Viper’s low hood line required some clever engineering, the steering shaft runs directly between the cylinder banks of the LEGO V10, as it was the only space left once the crank discs had claimed the rest.
The Viper GTS-R was a hugely capable road car, but where it really made a name for itself was out on track. It took a slew of class wins at the grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans, as well as an outright victory at the Daytona 24 Hours, and a couple of championships to boot. Image courtesy of LEGO®.
The box also has a code that unlocks a custom LEGO Technic livery in Forza Horizon 6, a video game tie-in this kit shares with this year’s Technic Ferrari 488 Pista, and it’s already proven popular.
It’s rated for ages 10 and up, and the finished model measures 3 inches high and 5 inches wide, with digital instructions available in the LEGO Builder app. It is on sale now through LEGO and its certified stores at $64.99 USD and you can visit the official store here.
Images courtesy of LEGO®
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
