The first 24 Hours of Le Mans took place on 26–27 May 1923, on public roads closed for the purpose around the town of Le Mans in the Sarthe department of northwestern France. Thirty-three cars started. Seventeen finished. The winners, André Lagache and René Léonard, covered 2,209 kilometres in a Chenard & Walcker — a car that weighed just under 1,000 kilograms and was powered by a 4-litre engine producing somewhere around 68 horsepower.
A hundred years later, Hypercar-class prototypes lap the same circuit at an average of over 230 km/h, generating more than 500 horsepower, with hybrid drivetrains managing energy recovery across each corner. The cars are incomparable. The circuit, largely, is not. The 13.626-kilometre track still runs past the same forests, over the same railway bridge at Indianapolis, down the same long straight at Hunaudieres where drivers once reached 405 km/h before chicanes were added in 1990.
What has made Le Mans endure — as a race, as a cultural event, as a myth — is the question at its heart. Not who is fastest, but who can sustain.
The Ford vs Ferrari Years
The race's most dramatic chapter began in the early 1960s, when Enzo Ferrari's dominance at Le Mans became, in Henry Ford II's estimation, intolerable. Ford had attempted to buy Ferrari in 1963. The deal collapsed at the last moment. Ford's response was to build the GT40 specifically to beat Ferrari at Le Mans.
It took four years. In 1966, Ford swept the top three positions — first, second, and third — in what remains one of the most famous finishes in motorsport history. The following year, they did it again. And again in 1968 and 1969. Ferrari didn't win again until 1972.
The GT40 years cemented the narrative that has defined Le Mans ever since: that the race was not just a motorsport event but a proxy war between industrial ambitions, national pride, and the egos of men who built empires from engines.
The Porsche Dynasty
No manufacturer has won Le Mans more times than Porsche. Their first overall victory came in 1970 with the 917, a car so powerful and aerodynamically unstable that it terrified its own drivers. Steve McQueen immortalised it in his 1971 film, shot partly at Le Mans itself.
Porsche won 16 times in total — including an extraordinary run of seven consecutive victories from 1981 to 1987. They returned in 2015 with the 919 Hybrid, won three consecutive years, and then, at the height of their dominance, withdrew from the top class. They came back again in 2023 for the race's centenary, in a year that also saw Ferrari return after a 50-year absence, and Cadillac, BMW, Lamborghini, and Toyota all competing at the front. The grid for the centenary race was the most star-studded in decades.
2026: A New Chapter
Le Mans 2026 arrives at a moment of genuine transition. The ACO's vision for the coming decades includes hydrogen fuel-cell prototypes, expanded electric categories, and a manufacturer entry list that continues to grow. The race's appeal to road-car brands as a proving ground — for powertrains, materials, and the simple marketing proposition of endurance — remains as strong as it was in 1923.
What hasn't changed is the ritual. The Le Mans start. The parade of cars to the grid. The tricolore at 3pm. The slow attrition of the night. The particular quality of light at dawn on the Circuit de la Sarthe, when the cars that have survived look older and wiser than they did the previous afternoon, and the drivers climbing out at the end of their stints move like men who have been somewhere else entirely.
These socks are for people who know that feeling — or who wish they did. The Le Mans 2026 collection. Official 24H Le Mans x Heel Tread collab.
