The coolest Le Mans cars from the 2024 Festival of Speed
The 2024 Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard was one dominated by F1 stars. But never let it be said that Goodwood's events don’t bring a bit of variety to the table. As such, we thought it prudent in the aftermath to highlight some of the truly incredible Le Mans racers we had in attendance. From Mercedes’ celebrations of 130 years in Motorsport, to our celebration of Joest, there were plenty of endurance legends floating around to enjoy.
Ferrari F40 LM
Ever since our early-era GT1 demo back at the 75th Members’ Meeting presented by Audrain Motorsport, F40 LMs have always stood out to us on Goodwood entry lists. This astonishing machine took the road car that was born out of a race car and returned it to the track in both the American IMSA and European WSC series. Arguably, it set the tone for the likes of the BPR series and ultimately the GT1 class, that would use the breed of hypercar the F40 birthed as its basis. It walked so that the McLaren F1 GTR that won Le Mans in 1995, could run.
Audi R8R
Audi’s era of dominance at Le Mans oddly feels like a distant memory now, but at the time it felt like it would never end. The R8 LMP1 car was arguably the star machine, but we’ve included the R8R here simply because it’s a car you rarely see outside of Audi tradition these days. It was on the Hill in celebration of the sprawling dominance of Joest Racing at Le Mans, which went on to run the winning cars. The R8C and R8R are the progenitors for the dominant four-ringed machines that would follow, as well as a suspiciously similar-looking Bentley that claimed victory with Joest in 2003.
BMW V12 LMR
BMW would do well to look back at past glory while in search of future ones, as the V12 LMR’s was a masterclass in Le Mans craft. Why? Because in spite of not being outright fastest over a lap, it was consistent, it was fuel efficient, it was friendly to drive, and it was reliable. It is the epitome of ‘to finish first, first you have to finish,’ which Toyota really didn’t seem to get at the time. It’s also a testament to the importance of having a great team, which of course the Schnitzer team that ran it was. A magnificent machine that sounded spectacular on the Hill.
Mercedes-Benz CLK LM
As did this, the lesser-known Mercedes-Benz CLK LM. This was the second proper development of the three-pointed star’s endurance racer, developed around the V8 engine that had previously been swapped into the GTR for reliability purposes. It was lower, wider, and gave way even less to the clause that it had to be ‘based on a road car’. Yes, there are road versions, believe it or not. Despite the CLK LM being geared towards, as the name suggests, Le Mans, the 1998 running famously went the way of Porsche and its 911 GT1-98, with the Mercedes suffering engine reliability issues. They were quick, though, and reliable enough to secure the manufacturer’s title in the 1998 FIA GT Championship.
Howmet TX
At the Festival of Speed, there’s the winners, the wonderful, and the downright weird. This falls into the latter category. Called the Howmet TX, it uses the gas turbine engine from a helicopter. In fact, it’s actually the first gas turbine car to win a race, taking victory at the Heart of Dixie celebration in Huntsville, Alabama. We published the full story of this car if you want to learn more. A fascinating machine.
Jaguar XJR9 LM
It might have been almost 40 years ago, but TWR’s 1988 Le Mans victory with the XJR9 LM still has us feeling a sense of national pride. This howling V12-engined monster was of course the car that Jan Lammers forcibly held in fourth gear, and didn’t change gear again, including for the final pit stop, for 40 minutes. Ready to cross the line, the other Silk Cut team cars got in formation with the leading car, with orders from the team to punt it over the line if necessary. That was never necessary but it did make for one of the most iconic line-crossing moments in the history of the race. While we celebrated Joest at Goodwood this year, this Jaguar is an example of a rare moment the team were bested.
Audi R18 TDI Ultra
A strange era with hindsight, for both endurance racing and for Audi (and VW Group as a whole) was the diesel era. Back in 2011, Audi’s R18 TDI Ultra used a turbocharged V6 to take victory at Le Mans, with the diesel machine needing fewer fuel stops than petrol-powered counterparts. Another one rarely seen these days, the R18 is arguably a car from when the Audi Sport Team Joest venture wasn’t quite at the height of its early 2000s R8-shaped powers. Nevertheless, it’s a wonderful machine from the first year top-level prototypes returned to a closed-cockpit design.
Porsche 956
Speaking of Joest Le Mans victories, these were perhaps two of the most special. We say two because this Porsche 956 run by Joest won in both 1984 and 1985, making it one of very few chassis in history to have won the 24 Hours twice. We had it here last year for our Le Mans centenary celebration, and at the 80th Members’ Meeting for the 956/962 celebration in 2022. We’ll never take seeing it out and about for granted, though.
Matra MS670
We couldn’t have a ‘coolest Le Mans cars at the Festival of Speed’ list without including the Matra MS670. If you can judge a sportscars’ coolness by its success, its looks or its sound, the Matra scores the holy trinity. For here is a beautiful sportscar, that was so successful at Le Mans it put Ferrari off returning properly for a full five decades. It’s also blessed with one of the all-time great V12s, certainly potentially the greatest ever in terms of sound. How such a significant car, and marque, in the history of sportscar racing isn’t a household name today, we’ll never know. Someone buy up Matra and create a French rival to McLaren.
Festival of Speed
FOS
FOS 2024
Event Coverage
Le Mans
Sportscars
List
Festival of Speed
Mega-gallery: From clubmans to Le Mans, sportscars at FOS
Festival of Speed
Gallery: Prototypes, GTs and sportscars
Goodwood SpeedWeek
Seven spectacular sportscars to see at SpeedWeek
