The 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race has been 79 times since its inception in 1923. While dozens of brands have competed over the years, one marque in particular has racked up more victories than any other.
That manufacturer, of course, is Porsche, who has managed to amass 16 overall victories, including seven in a row from 1981 through 1987. The Porsches run at Le Mans are the stuff of legend, including such models as the storied 917, the 956 and the 962.
While several teams currently run Porsche 997 GT3 RSR cars in the GTE Pro and GTE Am classes, Porsche hasn’t campaigned a Le Mans Prototype (LMP) car since the Porsche RS Spyder Evo ran in the LMP2 class in 2009 (or since the LMP1-98 ran in the faster LMP1 class in 1998). That will change in 2014, as Porsche is hard at work on an LMP1 car to challenge the likes of the Audi R18 TDI and the Peugeot 908.
To commemorate Porsche’s history at Le Mans, and to build excitement about the development of its new car, the German automaker is releasing a series of videos centered on the fabled endurance race. First up is a video called Porsche in Le Mans - The Early Years.