Winning the gruelling Le Mans 24 Hours has been one of the big goals for manufacturers since the race was first run in 1923.
Many have tried and failed, while others have been able to forge fine reputations off the back of success in endurance racing’s greatest race.
Toyota is the current master and scored its fifth victory in the 2022 edition, but it has a long way to go before it troubles the marques at the top of the list when it comes to outright wins…
Wins: 19 (1970-71, 1976-77, 1979, 1981-87, 1994, 1996-98, 2015-17)
It would be hard to argue against Porsche being the greatest Le Mans constructor of all time. Not only has it more overall wins than any other, it has also produced some of the finest sportscars and has taken many class successes too.
The German firm first appeared at the 24 Hours in 1951 (the 356 winning its class) and soon became a contender in the smaller-engined categories, punching above its weight. In 1955 Porsche took 4-5-6 overall as it dominated the 1500cc class with the 550 RS Spyder, while the first outright podium came in 1958 courtesy of the 718 RSK.
That trend continued into the 1960s, but new regulations for 1968 should have played into Porsche’s hands. That year it was defeated in the championship and at Le Mans by the ageing JW Automotive Engineering Gulf Ford GT40s. The 908 was the car to beat in 1969, but still Porsche lost out at Le Mans as Jacky Ickx defeated Hans Herrmann in a dramatic finish.
Once developed, Porsche’s mighty 917 became the sportscar racing benchmark and it finally delivered a Le Mans win, Richard Attwood and Herrmann claiming victory in the appallingly wet 1970 race.
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The 917 did it again the following year – setting a distance record that would stand until 2010 – before being outlawed.
Porsche briefly took a back seat, though continued filling the GT classes, before the 936 became the first turbocharged car to win Le Mans in 1976. The 936 would win again in 1977 and 1981, with the Kremer-developed 935 K3 stepping up in 1979 when the sports-prototypes failed.
The ground effect 956 and its successor the 962 became the benchmark of the new Group C regulations that arrived in 1982. The works 956s finished 1-2-3 on the car’s Le Mans debut that year and, with privateer versions filling the grid, Porsche had nine cars in the top 10 in 1983.
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Even as the challenge from Jaguar and then Sauber-Mercedes grew, Porsche remained a force at Le Mans and it’s run of seven consecutive successes only came to an and after an epic battle with Jaguar in 1988.
A change of regulations provided another opportunity as Porsche once again found a chink in the rules by homologating the Dauer 962 ‘road car’ as a GT. The result was 1-3 when the Toyota challenge hit trouble in the 1994 race.
It’s perhaps generous to include the two TWR Porsche WSC95 victories in 1996 and 1997 in the list, given they were based on Jaguars and run by Joest against the factory GTs. But Porsche had developed the car and it was Porsche powered. The GT1-98 completed an odd-hat-trick in 1998 when, once again, the impressive Toyota effort wilted.
Porsche took time away from the top class at the start of the 21st century, allowing Volkswagen Group sister brand Audi to make significant inroads to its record. But Porsche returned with the LMP1 919 Hybrid in 2014 and duly stamped its authority on sportscar racing once again, taking three consecutive Le Mans wins in 2015-17 before again stepping aside until its LMDh project for 2023.
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Wins: 13 (2000-02, 2004-8, 2010-14)
Audi’s Le Mans wins all came in one incredible period. More famous for its exploits in rallying and touring cars, Audi headed to Le Mans at the height of the manufacturer boom at the race in 1999. The open-topped R8Rs were outpaced but finished third and fourth, and the legendary R8 arrived for 2000.
Sadly, most of the opposition was gone, but a 1-2-3 was the start of a fantastic run for the R8. Between 2000 and 2005 the R8 was only beaten at Le Mans once, by the related Bentley programme, and two of those successes came in the hands of privateers.
Audi headed onto new ground with the LMP1 R10 TDI, which became the first diesel-powered car to win the 24 Hours in 2006. It won again in 2007 and then took a hat-trick against the odds in 2008 despite being outpaced in the dry by the Peugeot opposition.
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Peugeot finally got its LMP1 Le Mans success in 2009 but failed in dramatic style the following year. That allowed Audi to take its ninth victory, this time with the R15-plus, matching Ferrari’s tally and breaking Porsche’s distance record that stretched back to 1971.
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The R18 TDI beat the best Peugeot by just 13.9 seconds in 2011 and, after Peugeot’s withdrawal and the arrival of Toyota, Audi kept on winning. Its run finally came to an end in 2015, when Porsche returned to its triumphant ways at both Le Mans and the World Endurance Championship, and Audi withdrew at the end of 2016.
Wins: 9 (1949, 1954, 1958, 1960-65)
It’s remarkable that Ferrari has not even contested the top class at Le Mans for nearly 50 years and yet is still third on this list, such was its level of success in its early days. Ferrari was a new constructor when it first contested the 24 Hours in 1949 but won on its debut largely thanks to the efforts of Luigi Chinetti in Lord Selsdon’s 166 MM.
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Despite some big-engined contenders and multiple world sportscar titles, founder Enzo Ferrari largely had to play second fiddle to Jaguar at Le Mans for much of the 1950s. Jose Froilan Gonzalez drove brilliantly to defeat the new Jaguar D-type with the monstrous 375 Plus in 1954, but it was not until the arrival of the three-litre limit in 1958 that Ferrari took a stranglehold on the race.
Its 250 Testa Rossa was constantly developed and won three times in four years, defeated only by the soon-to-withdraw Aston Martin team in 1959, between 1958 and 1961. The four-litre 330 TRI/LM dominated in 1962 but by then the challenge to the Italian firm’s supremacy was negligible.
The 250 P became the first mid-engined car to win Le Mans in 1963, leading a Ferrari 1-2-3-4-5-6. Ford’s big challenge arrived in 1964, but the rapid American machines weren’t reliable enough to prevent more Ferrari success that year or 1965 – even if privateers saved Enzo’s bacon in 1965 when the factory cars faltered. Ford’s steamroller got the job done in 1966 and the MkIV did it again the following year, despite stern resistance from Ferrari’s superb 330 P4.
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Ferrari’s sportscar star was waning by the end of the decade, the 1969 312 P outnumbered by Porsche’s 908 and the 1970 512S outrun by the 917. But there was still one more big chance at Le Mans before Ferrari quit the top class to focus on its Formula 1 efforts.
The 1972 312 P (often referred to as the 312 PB) swept all before it in the world sportscar championship but didn’t go to Le Mans, which was dominated by Matra. The two titans met in 1973 and, after a hard-fought struggle, it was the French firm that came out on top, both in the title race and Le Mans.
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Since then, Ferrari has been largely restricted to the GT classes, including its successful factory-backed AF Corse GTE operation, but is set to challenge for overall Le Mans honours once again with a new Hypercar from 2023.
Wins: 7 (1951, 1953, 1955-57, 1988, 1990)
A promising run with mildly modified XK120s in 1950 encouraged Jaguar to take Le Mans seriously. The result was the C-type, which moved the goalposts and brought victory in the 24 Hours in 1951.
A catastrophic late bodywork change ruined Jaguar’s chances in 1952, but the C-types dominated the following year, with a 1-2-4. It was al Source: Autosport