24 Hours of Le Mans Review 1987

Overview

It had been 30 years since Jaguar's last Le Mans win, and the trio of Silk Cut-backed XJR-8LMs were determined to end that losing streak. However, the dominant works Rothmans Porsches were equal to the challenge and prepared three of the awesome turbo-charged 962Cs to face the V12 British attack. Reliability and accidents, many sparked by wet conditions, would decimate the field, reducing the works Porsche challenge to just one car before nightfall. The hours of darkness would claim one of the Jaguars, Win Percy luckily escaping a massive crash - captured on this review by an amateur cameraman. Reliability problems would be Jaguar's undoing, a second car retiring with eight hours to go and the final XJR-8LM dropping down the order as it battled mechanical woes. That left the Porsche of Derek Bell, Hans-Joachim Stuck and Al Holbert virtually unchallenged in the final hours, but the victory was no less sweeter for that - they had taken Jaguar on, and won.