Yahoo Autos Watch How Le Mans-Winning Cars Have Evolved Over 80 Years
As one of the longest-running races in the world, the 24 Hours of Le Mans has seen an incredibly wide spectrum of cars finish first. It seems more like 180 years should separate a Bentley 3 Litre Sports and an Audi R18, but there's only 80 years between the two. For this reason, it's fascinating to watch this morphing evolution of Le Mans winners.
This animation was put together by Donut Media and while it misses some crucial cars–the Porsche 956/962 and Audi R8 LMP1 being the most notable omissions–it captures the many major eras well. The most striking thing to see is how much horsepower climbed in the 1960s with the rise of Group 4 and Group 5 racers.
Captured here is a very impressive lineage, and one can't help but imagine what the next 80 years will look like.
