Events & Tours
Tales of Le Mans from the Forgotten Marques — Part 1
Before Porsche and Audi, lesser-known marques wrote Le Mans in their own hand — Rondeau won it in a car bearing his name.
When one thinks of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the mind turns almost invariably to the great industrial empires — Porsche, say — or to rivalries that have passed into legend: Ferrari against Ford in the 1960s, Audi against Peugeot in the first decade of the new millennium. For much of its history, however, Le Mans has been a place where anyone with enough courage, talent, and an often reckless measure of stubbornness could attempt to take on the hardest race in the world.
These individuals — some small constructors, others eccentric entrepreneurs, others still dreamers or fiercely ambitious enthusiasts — shared a single ambition: to make the impossible possible. It is partly thanks to them that the race became what it is today.
