1923 race
The first Le Mans race did not have a winner - at least not immediately. The original, and very strange idea, was to have an aggregate winner over three years (and you thought 24 hours was a long time to wait for a motor race to end), but that was soon abandoned. The distinctive start, whereby drivers ran to their cars, put the roof down, started the engine and then drove off, led to some hard work on quicker-folding convertible roofs.
Blower Bentley (1930)
Bentley won four successive Le Mans between 1927 and 1930, which created Britain's enduring love affair with the race. The most famous Bentley of all, the supercharged "Blower Bentley" never won the race - indeed, it was never intended to. The fast, but fragile Bentley was a "hare" - a car that set a pace that would break the chasing opposition and leave the way clear for the standard Bentleys.
Jaguar C Type (1953)
1953 was the C-Type's second victory (the first coming in 1951). The 1953 race was a walkover with a Jaguar one-two thanks to a brilliant technical breakthrough: Jaguar had been working with Girling to adapt brakes designed for aircraft. The result - the now universal disc brakes - meant Jaguar could run rings around Ferrari. The C-Type could follow a drum-braked Ferrari along the straight, wait for it to brake, go straight past at maximum speed and still have time to brake for the corner.
Jaguar D Type (1957)
Jaguar's follow-up was even more successful, winning three successive Le Mans from 1955 to 1957. Whereas the C-Type was a heavily modified XK120 road car, the D-Type was Jaguar's first purpose built racing car and was years ahead of the opposition.
Aston Martin DBR1 (1959)
Despite tiny resources, Aston Martin managed to win both Le Mans and the World Sports Car Championship with this car. Up to then Aston had been quite an obscure manufacturer of moderately powerful GT cars, but the DBR 1 and contemporary 240 bhp DB4 road car put Aston on the map as a genuine Ferrari competitor.
Ford GT40 (1966)
The first of four consecutive Ford victories. Legend has it that Ford was so annoyed he could not buy Ferrari that he set out to beat them at Le Mans (a bit like the legend that Lamborghini became a competitor because he could not get Enzo Ferrari to listen to his complaints). The GT40 was designed in England with an American engine - an early example of companies coming here to have their racing cars designed, regardless of the official nationality of the car.
Jaguar XJR-8 (1988)
A hugely emotional victory for Jaguar after a 31 year gap. Everyone knew it was Jaguar's best chance against the fading Porsche 962 and Le Mans was taken over by Brits. Even the entry tickets had a picture of the Jaguar on them and the French, for once, were totally behind the British team. The fact that the car used a remarkably lightly-modified XJ12 engine meant it had a link to the road cars seldom seen in modern racing.
Bentley Speed 8 (2003)
73 years after the last Bentley victory, the company added a fifth. Well, sort of. In truth, it was a development of the Audi R8 painted British Racing Green, but it made a great story. History books will record that Bentley won the race again, and that is all that matters.
Audi R8 (2005)
The dominant racing car of its time. Between 2000 and 2005, it won Le Mans five times (missing out in 2003 when its Bentley cousin took the victory). It was superbly reliable and also very quick to fix when things went wrong. No previous racing car had been designed so carefully to ensure major components could be changed in minutes rather than hours.
Audi R10 (2008)
The successor to the R8 , but with a twist. The R10 is the first successful diesel sports-racing car, having won Le Mans for three successive years. It is not the first diesel to race at Le Mans as there were a couple of obscure French entries just after the war, but it is the first one that matters. Le Mans rules now favour diesel engines as petrol engines face more stringent power restrictions. However, Audi still had to beat genuine competition: Peugeot was desperate to win Le Mans last year with its diesel-powered 908 HDi.