After simmering away for months, the hype has finally reached fever pitch. The long-awaited 24 Hours of Le Mans centenary celebration will take place this weekend, with over 300,000 poised to descend on the Circuit de la Sarthe. To say the stage is set would be an understatement. The occasion has, perhaps unsurprisingly, attracted a raft of major manufacturers to endurance racing’s new top-flight Hypercar category, all gunning to raise the special 100th-anniversary trophy, as captured below during last year’s Goodwood Revival.

The Ferraris flanking the trophy – the 1958 Le Mans-winning 250 Testa Rossa and the 275 P which triumphed in the French endurance classic in both 1963 and 1964 – were not parked there by accident. The Prancing Horse is mounting a Works assault on outright victory this weekend for the first time since 1973. And the early pace shown by the marque’s 499 P Hypercar is already kindling fires of excitement in the paddock.

As if we needed an excuse to delve into the Girardo & Co. Archive, we thought it would be fun to find some great photos from over the decades at Le Mans which encapsulate why it is the greatest motor race in the world. It’s going to be one helluva weekend. Catch you on the flipside and, with fingers and toes crossed, a Le Mans trophy en route to Maranello.

A fairy-tale. How else can one justifiably describe Ferrari returning to Le Mans with a top-flight prototype in this, the centenary year of the French endurance classic? It’s been almost 25 years since a Prancing Horse last vied for outright honours at the Circuit de la Sarthe. That car was the glorious 12-cylinder 333 SP, a Formula 1-engined which screamed like a banshee along the Mulsanne Straight. Pictured here is the JMB Racing entry of Vincenzo Sospiri, Jean Christophe Boullion and Jérôme Policand during the 1998 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Let’s see if the squadron of new 499 Ps can achieve what the 333 SP couldn’t and put Ferrari on the top step at Le Mans for the first time since 1965. The thought alone. Tantalising!

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Le Mans by night. Is there a more mesmerising spectacle in motorsport? Blinding headlights. Glowing hot brake discs. Licks of flame. A wave of thunder rolling quickly and confidently through the forest towards you. We reckon this magnificent long-exposure photograph from the Girardo & Co. Archive encapsulates the magic beautifully. It was captured on the exit of Tertre Rouge during the 1989 edition of the French endurance classic. The height of the halcyon Group C era, when Sauber-Mercedes ‘Silver Arrows’ fought furiously against Silk Cut-liveried Jaguars, the assault on the senses must have left an indelible impression.

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Paint effectively sand-blasted from the bodywork. A spiderweb-like crack in the corner of the windscreen. Protective headlight covers in situ protecting the fragile glass lenses beneath. And a thin veneer of grime and rubber smeared across the most exposed surfaces. There is something indescribably alluring about a sports-racing car towards the end of a 24-hour endurance race. This Jolly Club-entered Lancia LC2, pictured in the early hours at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1984, is the perfect case in point, don’t you agree?

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The 24 Hours of Le Mans has always been so much more than a motor race. It’s a celebration – a high-octane excuse for spectators from across Europe and beyond to come together and let their hair down against the backdrop of endurance racing’s tallest mountain. Naturally, for some, the excitement can get the best of them. Take these three gentlemen, for example, pictured in the wee hours during the 1988 running of the race. Contrary to what you might expect, the repetitive circling of the cars at Le Mans actually has a very calming effect on the brain after a little while. At least that’s what we’re sure they told themselves.

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We’ve all seen that clip of Mark Webber quite literally launching skyward in his Mercedes-Benz CLR during qualifying for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1999. Well, this was the aftermath of that shocking airborne accident. It’s a testament to the technical regulations of the time and, of course, Mercedes’ engineering nous that the wreck doesn’t look half as bad as you’d expect it to after a collision of such magnitude. The central tub, for example, looks to be entirely intact. Remarkably, Mercedes would fix Webber’s car in good time ahead of Saturday afternoon’s race. But astonishingly, on the Australian’s first out lap during final practice, the CLR suffered the exact same fate, taking off and landing on its roof.

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We simply couldn’t compile this list without including an image of the sole time the late, great Colin McRae competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The late Scottish World Rally Champion and all-time motorsport legend raced this Ferrari 550 Maranello Prodrive, chassis number CRD03, in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2004 – the only ever time he switched special stage for the circuit. Teamed up with endurance staples Darren Turner and Rickard Rydell, McRae fared excellently at the Circuit de la Sarthe, the Prodrive team clinching an impressive GTS class podium and the fastest race lap in the category.

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Golden hour at Le Mans. Short of perhaps the Angeles Crest Highway in California, there really is nowhere else like it. As the typically fierce summer sun begins to dip, the temperatures cool off and the teams and drivers settle into their groove, a magical aura sweeps over the circuit. Spectators go about their evenings, lighting their barbeques, hitting the funfair and filling the hundreds of bars dotted around the circuit, almost unaware of the world’s most hotly-contested motor race taking place in the background. Unless you’ve experienced it for yourself, it’s difficult to explain. But trust us, book a ticket, loiter in the grandstands around the start-finish line as the sun sets, and you’ll never ever forget it.

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It might have changed location a few times over the years, but there’s one staple of the 24 Hours of Le Mans that’s always been a spectator favourite: the Ferris wheel and the famous funfair. Immortalised in Steve McQueen’s cult-classic racing flick Le Mans in 1971, the funfair at the Circuit de la Sarthe comes alive as the sun sets, the bright flashing lights, cacophonous buzzers and sirens and the heady smell of sizzling sausages providing a temporary haven away from the on-track action. The view out over the circuit section from the top of the Ferris wheel is extraordinary, showing the scope and significance of what is the world’s greatest motor race.

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Picture it now. Porsche and its new 963 Hypercar pull off a miraculous victory at this weekend’s centenary 24 Hours of Le Mans. And when the trio of drivers reach the rostrum to lift the magnificent trophy, they’re swamped by journalists and members of the public who’ve employed the ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’ tactic to clamber their way onto the podium as well. It just wouldn’t happen, would it? This amazing photo of Hurley Haywood, Vern Schuppan and Al Holbert after their victory in 19 shows that exact scenario. It’s a jubilant but chaotic scene, which goes to show how relaxed and accessible motorsport was back then – a world before security, health and safety and corporate necessity really sucked much of the life and soul out. We especially like the Porsche team member dangling dramatically from above to droop Hawaiian leis around the drivers’ necks.

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Are there any words more evocative to a motorsport buff than Group C? It was an endurance racing era for the free radicals – a loose framework of rules designed to encourage designers and engineers to push the technological envelope further than it had ever been pushed before. Group C harnessed the newfangled wizardry of ground effect, which manipulated the very air we breathe and pushed speeds to the boundaries of physics. Plucky privateers stood every chance of upsetting the major manufacturers. Grids and grandstands alike were bursting at the seams. And as a result of all of the above, every household brand name you could think of adorned the soap bar-shaped cars in a kaleidoscope of striking ways. At Le Mans, especially, with its desperately long straights, it was motorsport at its most unadulterated and excessive. This was the 1980s, after all.

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Teamwork has always been at the heart of endurance motorsport – the underlying spirit around which the genre was born back in the early-20th century. And nowhere is the role of teamwork more instrumental than at Le Mans, a twice-round-the-clock war of attrition requiring so much from man and machine. This snapshot of factory Lancia drivers Michele Alboreto and Rolf Stommelen helping each other during a driver change at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1982 shows there’s no ‘I’ in team. Especially in a 24-hour race.

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Looking ahead to this weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, there’s a certain expectation what with the centenary celebrations and the excellent roll-call of manufacturers gunning for glory. Let’s all hope the race lives up to its billing. We’ll be watching every step of the way. Catch you on the flipside when, if the stars align, there’s a trophy en route to Maranello.

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Photos courtesy of the Girardo & Co. Archive

The Girardo & Co. Archive is a treasure trove of over five million captivating motorsport images from the late-1970s through to the present day. You can click here to browse the archive and purchase high-resolution photos directly from the website.