It just made sense, really. Having celebrated the very best of 1990s' GT1 cars, we had to be follow it up with a GT2 missive. While the cars are a little less well known, as is almost always the way with the second tier of any series, there were some truly exceptional competitors in the GT2 category of the same time. As will shortly be seen.
For this story, like with GT1, we're just focussing on our favourites from the 90s, because it was a real high point for sportscar racing. It shouldn't be forgotten, however, that GT1 and GT2 got a rework from 2005 (running until 2011) when the likes of the Maserati MC12, Lamborghini Murcielago, Spyker C8 and Ferrari 575 GTC got involved. Anyway, here's the shortlist...
6. Lotus Esprit GT2
We kick off the GT2 rundown with another Lotus entrant, this time the lesser known Esprit GT2. You can see it in action here, in fact, making a debut in 1995 at the BPR Global GT Donington round; as well as looking suitably snazzy, the Esprit was pretty damn good as well. Driven by Alex Zanardi no less (alongside Alex Portman), that famed Esprit chassis made it competitive even with less power than most (400hp) from its 2.2-litre four-cylinder turbo.
The Esprit was going so well at Donny, in fact, that it was on for a maiden victory... until the differential failed. Still, for showing such promise, for getting Alex Zanardi in a GT2 car and for reminding everyone what a gem of an Esprit the Sport 300 road car was, the Lotus makes the list. Even if it won't surprise you to learn that some competitors from further on in this list were a tad more successful.
5. Honda NSX
For the noise, really. Watch this video, onboard an NSX GT2 at Le Mans in 1994, and tell us you wouldn't want to be in there for 24 hours. There's that familiar NSX howl, fierce yet buttery smooth, overlaid with some transmission whine and punctuated with the most wonderful rev-matched downshifts. With jazzy red racing boots. In a Kenwood-liveried Honda. It is peak 1990s sports car.
The NSX wasn't simply a flight of fancy, either. Honda had NSX-R shells sent to England to be made into both GT1 and GT2 racers; while the former was turbocharged, the latter kept the V6 in its atmospheric form - albeit with tweaks to liberate 400hp. Furthermore, while 1994 was a disappointing Le Mans campaign, in 1995 the NSX won the GT2 class; Drift King Keiichi Tsuchiya was one of the drivers, finishing eighth overall and completing 275 laps. To prove it wasn't a fluke, Team Kunimitsu returned in 1996 with the same drivers and another NSX GT2, this time taking the podium again in third. It wasn't just 911s and Vipers doing well in GT2, honest...
4. Porsche 911 (993)
It would be impossible to do one of these lists without mentioning the Porsche 911, however. Look back over the entry lists and highlights of BPR GT, FIA GT and Le Mans during the mid-90s and you'll find the GT2 category fit to burst with 993s. Not just the GT2 and GT2 Evo, either, but the Carrera RS and RSRs as well - it was the car to beat and Porsche (or the private outfits) were the team to beat, with some race weekends seeing GT1 and GT2 classes won by Porsches called GT1 and GT2...
During the 1996 BPR GT season, only three events didn't have their GT2 race won by a 911; in 1997 four of the top six drivers in the FIA GT championship drove 993s; at Le Mans, a Carrera RSR won the GT class in 1993, then the LMGT2 in 1994. A GT2 took the category in 1996, and again in 1997 - it was a formidable race car, the 993, blending speed, durability and dynamic nous that made it hard to beat. That the associated road car homologations, the GT2 and Carrera RSRs, have become some of the most revered 911s in history has only helped the mystique.
3. Marcos LM600
Those three races that the 911 didn't win during the 1996 BPR GT season? They were won by a Marcos instead . Which is pretty cool. The LM400, 500 and 600 race cars, derived from the Mantara, thrived on that most traditional of GT racer recipes: lightweight, pretty British body, honking great US V8 up front (from Chevrolet in this case), squeeze the driver in somewhere and hope for the best.
Of course, the reality would have been a tad more complex but, regardless, the results spoke for themselves: as well as those 1996 wins, the Marcos Racing International LM600 took a pair of podiums in the 1997 FIA GT Championship, and three more in 1998. That's in addition to GT2 titles in the British GT championship for 1995, 1996, plus the GT title with an LM600 in 2000. By all accounts the Marcos was a thoroughly decent race car, then, aided in its case for hearts and minds with a V8 rumble and the unmistakeable hot-rod-from-outer-space looks. How did they get it quite that low?
2. Lister Storm
One that arguably should have made it to the GT1 list, so we'll make amends by getting into GT2 instead. That's not a mistake, either: once manufacturers caught wind of Porsche's plan to make a bespoke GT1 sports car, models were reworked for GT2 to avoid a total trouncing. So although the Storm made its debut as a GT1 racecar at Le Mans in 1995 (the road car having begun production in 1993), the writing was on the wall even then with McLaren's dominance. Storms were again at La Sarthe in '96, as well as the BPR Global GT from the Nurburgring onwards. But, if Wikipedia is to be believed, it didn't finish a single race that year.
For 1997 the Storm GTS for GT1 became the GT2-spec Storm GTL with the longer nose. However, without much success in that from either, it was once again back to the drawing board. By 1999 the Lister was sorted, though, as the Storm GT, and enjoyed success. There were podiums in 1999 FIA GT, five wins in 2000 and British GT victories as well. Even as late as 2003 the car was winning; that longevity, after such inauspicious beginnings, is what gets the Storm in here. What gets it so high, however, is that sensational 7.0-litre V12, the iconic liveries, and that bit of the Tiff Needell video...
1. Chrysler Viper
There's a small caveat to the Lister Storm entry above. While five wins in the FIA GT Championship of 2000 is laudable, it was aided enormously by Chrysler's departure at the end of 1999. Alongside the 911, the Viper dominated GT2 racing with the mighty V10 and an aesthetic just as recognisable as the Porsche's. In 1997, Team Oreca Viper drivers (including Justin Bell) took first, third and fourth in the driver's championship; as a team it scored 50 per cent more points than the second-place Roock Racing. In 1998 the Oreca Vipers went even better, taking the first three spots in the drivers' standings, and the teams' title by 99 points. It only had 130 in total...
Believe it or not, however, 1999 was the Viper's zenith. Mercedes had so dominated GT1 racing in 1997 and 1998 that it was dropped from FIA GT for the last year of the millennium, the series becoming a solely GT2-spec championship. And you can guess what happened. A Viper won every single race of the 10-round campaign, with Oreca, Chamberlain Motorsport and Paul Belmondo Racing filling out the top five positions of the drivers' championship - the first 911 GT2, admittedly an old race car by then, was in sixth place. No wonder Oreca didn't feel the need to bother in 2000. That's all before mentioning the Spa, Le Mans and Nurburgring victories...
Furthermore, while the Viper GT2 Commemorative Edition was a celebration rather than a homologation special, the combination of white with blue stripes, big BBS wheels and chunky splitters made it worthy nonetheless. A fitting first spot, we'd like to think, for a memorable GT2 era.
[Picture credits: White Carrera RSR, Tom Gidden for RM Auctions; silver 911 GT2 Tim Scott for RM Auctions; blue 911 GT2 Remi Dargegen for RM Auctions and Viper courtesy of RM Auctions]
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