As early as 1992, Alain Prost had ambitions to buy the Ligier team, and had tested their 1992 car incognito, wearing Érik Comas's crash helmet, with a view to being a driver-owner, even setting competitive lap times. Ligier was being supplied with Elf lubricants and Renault engines at the time, and the French manufacturers had strong ties with Prost. They were pushing to keep him in F1 after his sacking by Ferrari at the end of 1991. Prost wanted to bring John Barnard, who had designed his title winning McLaren cars in 1985 and 1986 on board as part of the package. The deal fell through just before the season opening race in South Africa however, and Prost sat the season out before joining the similarly Renault powered Williams team for 1993, and won his fourth world championship before his retirement from racing.
In the meantime, Ligier was bought instead by Cyril Bourlon de Rouvre. The team enjoyed an upswing in fortunes under his ownership and went on to be reasonably competitive in the mid 1990s.
De Rouvre then sold up to Benetton bosses Flavio Briatore and Tom Walkinshaw in early 1994 after being convicted for fraud. Briatore saw this deal as a way to gain access to the Renault engines for Benetton, which at the time were the dominant engines in F1. Briatore placed Walkinshaw at Ligier as team boss, but he walked away and bought Arrows after a disagreement with the Italian, taking chief designer Frank Dernie with him.
Prost completed the purchase of the Ligier team in February 1997 after several months of speculation. The new owner immediately changed the name to Prost. An exclusive contract for full-factory works Peugeot engines was announced for 1998, but the team continued with Ligier's planned Mugen-Honda engines for 1997. As there was no time before the season started to design and build a new car, the team simply used the Ligier JS45 designed by Loïc Bigois and renamed it the Prost JS45.
