Back in 2011, my book, Porsche at Le Mans: Sixty Years of Porsche Participation In The Greatest Motor Race, was published, and it quickly sold out. Porsche at Le Mans was short-listed as a finalist in the British Motorsports Book of the Year awards at a ceremony in London. So when I was asked by Motorbooks International (Quarto Knows) to update this to ‘Porsche at Le Mans 70 Years’ (1951 – 2021), I jumped at the opportunity of bringing this title up to the then-current 2021 race.
My strong relationship with the folks at Porsche has enabled me to interview many factory drivers, designers, engineers, and team personnel, both past and present. Many of those folk, from both sides of the Atlantic, have provided invaluable insights into designing, driving and working on these magnificent race cars. It has been one of the biggest privileges of my career to be able to do this, and numerous of those interviews have been published in this book.
The once small motor manufacturer that started production with the first Porsche 356 in 1947 in the Austrian mountain village of Gmünd, grew exponentially after the War. Just four short years after their first car was produced, Porsche was competing in the Le Mans 24 Hour race. In that year, 1951, the diminutive 1086 cc 356 SL (Superleicht – Super Light) finished twentieth overall and first in the 1100 cc class. Company founder, Ferry Porsche, was always keen to promote their achievements, but the fledgling manufacturer didn’t have an advertising budget, and so he just let their motor racing achievements speak for themselves.
As the years rolled on by, Porsche became known as the Giant Killers, because under Ferry’s philosophy of building his cars as light as possible, they could compete with much more powerful and heavier race cars, and win.
Throughout the 1960s, the Porsche race department was at its busiest, developing no fewer than 10 new race cars between 1961 and 1969. Seven of those ten racers competed successfully at Le Mans, with the manufacturer’s first overall Le Mans victory coming by way of the mighty 917 in 1970. Driven by Hans Herrmann/Richard Attwood, the pair brought their ‘small-engined’ 4.5-litre 917 home first despite torrential rain and in very difficult conditions.
1974 saw the introduction of the first turbocharged car to compete at Le Mans, and in the hands of Herbert Müller/Gijs van Lennep, the Porsche Carrera RSR 2.1-litre finished second overall. In 1979, the Kremer Brothers from Cologne achieved the impossible by winning the 24-hour race with their No. 41 Porsche 935 K3. Kremer was one of Porsche’s preferred privateer teams, and they developed the mighty 935 model even further than the factory had done.
The 1980s belonged to Porsche as they secured seven consecutive wins from 1981 (with the 936) to 1987 with their 956 and 962 models. To the outsider, these two cars appear very similar, and they are, except that by regulation the wheelbase was lengthened by 120 millimetres, thus moving the driver’s feet behind the front axle centerline. However, within the factory, the two cars were regarded as one. From 1982 to 1992, the period during which these Group C cars raced, was brought to an end by Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone, the two top men in the FIA. Group C had become too popular, and they wanted to boost Formula 1 attendance. This left endurance racing out in the cold, effectively bringing to a close the most exciting and popular period in modern motorsport.
During the 1990s, Grand Touring cars (GT) rose from the ashes, and this saw the introduction of the controversial Dauer Porsche 962 LM GT, giving Porsche another victory in 1994. They followed this in 1998 with a 1-2 finish for a pair of factory Porsche GT1-98s, just in time to commemorate the manufacturer’s fiftieth anniversary.
After their victory in ’98, Porsche withdrew its factory teams until 2013, when it returned to Le Mans with the new 911 RSR, resulting in a class win that year. The next overall Le Mans victory for Porsche came in 2015 with the prototype 919 Hybrid, a feat they repeated in 2016 and again in 2017. At the end of that season, Porsche withdrew its prototype factory team from the World Endurance Championship but continued with its GT team. Porsche is the only manufacturer to have competed at Le Mans every year since its first race there in 1951, in either the GT or prototype classes, with both factory and private teams. By the year 2021, that totalled 70 consecutive starts. By comparison, Ferrari had made 49 starts (since 1949) and Aston Martin 44 starts (since 1928) by this date.
By far, the most successful race car of all time is the Porsche 956/962 model. This race car, in both Group C and IMSA spec, amassed 232 major international victories, but its record at Le Mans is perhaps the most impressive. In 1982, the Porsche 956 scored a whitewash, taking the first three overall positions. The following year, the 956 occupied the first eight positions plus tenth, a lone BMW upsetting a full-house. This was followed in 1984 with the top seven positions plus ninth, and in 1985, Porsche 956/962s occupied eight out of the top ten places…and so the record continued.
Porsche can also boast the highest number of consecutive wins at Le Mans: 7 wins between 1981 and 1987; Ferrari 6 wins between 1960 and 1965; Audi 5 wins between 2004 and 2008; Ford 4 wins between 1966 and 1969; and Toyota 4 wins between 2018 and 2021. By 2021, Porsche had racked up nineteen overall Le Mans 24 Hour victories, Audi thirteen, Ferrari nine, and Jaguar seven.
Such a record of achievements puts the argument that Porsche is the most successful race car manufacturer in the world beyond question, whether from an uninterrupted run of starts, the number of overall victories or consecutive wins. This makes the book Porsche at Le Mans 70 Years an invaluable record of this manufacturer’s standing in the sport. Your bookshelf would look all the richer for having a copy on display!
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