The class was first defined in the FIA Appendix J regulations in 1993, debuting at Le Mans under the name Group GT. In 1994, following the collapse of the FIA World Sportscar Championship in 1992, the BPR Global GT Series was founded by Jürgen Barth, Patrick Peter, and Stéphane Ratel — with their surnames forming the series organiser's name. Conceived as a championship for privateers with four-hour endurance races, the series featured four categories (GT1 through GT4), with GT1 as the top tier.
By 1996, the grid had grown substantially thanks to an influx of cars from multiple manufacturers, including the McLaren F1 GTR and the Porsche 911 GT2 Evolution based on the 993 chassis, which replaced the 964-platform 911 Carrera RSRs. The arrival of professional factory teams drove costs sharply upward. Porsche entered a factory effort with the 911 GT1, a car regarded by many in the paddock as built against the spirit of the rules — it was effectively a Porsche 962 chassis with only the front shared with the 993 road car, with a street version produced purely to satisfy homologation requirements. Earlier homologation strategies had included Porsche's collaboration with Dauer Sportwagen on the Dauer 962 Le Mans in 1994 and Toyota's use of the heavily modified SARD MC8-R, alongside more road-derived entries such as the Toyota Supra, Nissan Skyline GT-R, and Honda NSX.
Following Patrick Peter's departure from the organisation, the BPR operation evolved into the Stéphane Ratel Organisation, which co-organised the FIA GT Championship alongside the FIA from 1997. The season brought the entry of the Mercedes-AMG team, which debuted the CLK GTR — a car that, like the 911 GT1, was a homologation special in name only. The CLK GTR shared only its instrumentation, front grille, and four headlamps with the road-going CLK coupe, and no street-legal version had even been built by the time the category collapsed in 1999.
McLaren, recognising the F1 GTR was no longer competitive against the homologation specials, updated its bodywork so significantly that it was required to build a corresponding road car — the F1 GT, of which three examples were constructed. In 1998, with the updated CLK LM and Porsche 911 GT1-98 rendering the F1 GTR uncompetitive, McLaren withdrew its backing from the programme. The 1998 season saw Mercedes-AMG win every round of the championship with both the CLK GTR and CLK LM. For 1999, no GT1 teams entered apart from Mercedes-AMG itself, prompting the FIA to run that year's championship exclusively with the GT2 class.
Following the collapse of the original GT1 class, the FIA GT Championship was restructured. The former GT2 class was elevated to the top tier and eventually renamed GT1 in 2005, while a new lower class called N-GT replaced it. The equivalent classes in ACO-sanctioned events were the GTS and GT categories. In this era, the Maserati MC12 became the dominant force, earning five consecutive teams' titles from 2006 to 2009 for the Vitaphone Racing Team in the FIA GT Championship.
The GT1 category in its final form ran from 2010 until the FIA dissolved it at the beginning of 2012. The category's evolution over nearly two decades — from a privateer series for genuine production GT cars through to an era of factory-backed homologation prototypes and back toward a production-based format — reflects the broader tensions in GT racing between commercial viability, manufacturer ambition, and regulatory intent.