Porsche is the most successful manufacturer at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with 19 outright victories to their name. Almost every top-level endurance racer made in Stuttgart has found its way to Victory Lane after a day-long battle around the Circuit de Le Sarthe. Their presence at Le Mans has been constant since their first entry in 1951, with the brand taking overall wins in the 1970s, 80s, 90s - and they were expected to continue this run of form into the 2000s.

The first 16 triumphs at Le Mans came in three consecutive decades, but win number 17 didn’t come until 2015. The brand could’ve boasted five consecutive decades of Le Mans glory, but as the old advert says: nobody’s perfect. However, this wasn’t supposed to happen, and Porsche had built a clean-sheet prototype to take on the new LMP900 category, but due to internal politics and an SUV project which led to the birth of the Cayenne, Porsche turned away from top-level endurance racing just as its new challenger was nearing completion. The racecar ultimately gave the world the Carrera GT, but that wasn’t the plan. So how did the LMP 2000 influence everything but the race that it was designed to conquer?

Prologue: GT vs LMP

To understand the story of the LMP 2000, we first need to understand the forces that shaped it. The story begins in the early 1990s when neither Porsche or sportscar racing were in rude health. Sales were in freefall and there was even talk of the Porsche family selling up to Mercedes-Benz. 

Around the same time, the World Sportscar Championship was turned on its head as changes to Group C prototype rules banned anything other than a 3.5-litre naturally aspirated engine with reciprocating pistons. Not only did this outlaw Mazda’s famous rotary-engined 787B, it led to a spike in costs that the privateer teams couldn’t afford, and caused manufacturers like Peugeot to pivot to F1 instead. The idea of having a common engine formula across the two pinnacles of circuit-based motorsport didn’t work out as planned.

The organisers of the 24 Hours of Le Mans continued to shape the rules to put purpose-built prototypes at the head of the field for their signature event - now known as Le Mans Prototypes (LMPs), they would continue to share the tarmac with production-based Grand Tourers (GTs). To capitalise on the buoyant supercar market at the time, GT1 regulations were drawn up, allowing models like the Bugatti EB110, Ferrari F40 and Venturi Atlantique to race at Le Mans.

GT1 cars were never meant to rival LMP1 entries, but this is where Porsche comes in. One of the icons of the late Group C era was the Porsche 962, which was in the process of being turned into a roadgoing supercar by racing driver Jochen Dauer. In typical fashion, Porsche spotted a loophole in the regulations and re-engineered the roadgoing Dauer 962s to become racers once more. They entered the GT1 category, taking advantage of the larger fuel tanks and higher power limits than the prototypes were allowed. The gamble paid off, and the pair of Dauer 962s won the GT1 class, being the only cars to finish. In fact, they won the race overall, beating Toyota’s 94C-V prototype entered in the LMP1 category.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. GT1 rules evolved to mandate that 25 road cars would be built in order for any racing variant to be legal. To enter the class, Porsche upgraded their 911 GT2 Evo to GT1 standards, but uninspiring results led them to once again reverse-engineer the rulebook like they did in 1994. Instead of building a road car into a racing car, they flipped the process on its head by building a racer that would then be homologated for road use. The result was the 911 GT1.

Following McLaren’s famous debut win in 1995 where GT1 machinery again reigned supreme over the LMP1 class, Porsche were confident of the 911 GT1’s chances at La Sarthe. In fact, they’d even cancelled a prototype project called the WSC-95 – the result of a Tom Walkinshaw Racing effort that converted a Jaguar XJR-14 Group C coupé into an open-top roadster, and installed a Porsche flat-six engine. The car was built for regulations that no longer existed, but Reinhold Joest – founder and principal of Team Joest – convinced Porsche to let his team enter two of these cars at Le Mans.

The deal was done, and at the 1996 24 Hours of Le Mans, Porsche would win the LMGT1 class with the new 911 GT1s. Both cars finished on the overall podium just as they did in 1994, but this time the prototypes prevailed, specifically the Porsche-powered WSC-95. A year later, the #7 car would repeat its feat, once again finishing one lap ahead of the LMGT1 field to take overall victory.

The WSC-95 project went full-circle, having been started, cancelled, allowed to race with Porsche’s blessing and ultimately spoiling the factory fairytale story, before being bought by the manufacturer that gave it the green light in the first place. It was clear that the GT1s had their strengths, but the future of sportscar racing was starting to look prototype-shaped once more.

In 1998, Porsche created an entirely new GT1 challenger known as the 911 GT1-98, and I’ll let you figure out how they named it, dear reader. The car was essentially a closed-cockpit prototype with a carbon-fibre monocoque replacing the mixture of 993 road car and 962 racer parts that made up the 1996-97 GT1 model.

The GT1-98 was not the fastest car on the grid, being outpaced by the Mercedes-Benz CLK LM and the Toyota GT One, but the 911 GT1s had reliability on their side, taking the overall win and second place. However, these were not the only cars that Porsche had entered with the hope of fighting for overall honours; they had hedged their bets by entering in both the top categories.

The 911 GT1-98s were joined by a pair of prototypes called LMP1-98. These were evolutions of the two WSC-95s which wore new front bodywork and were fitted with the same 3.2-litre flat-six turbo engine as the 911 GT1-98s. The prototypes wouldn’t make the finish, but with GT1 cars morphing into prototypes and the category collapsing at the end of the 1998 season, it became clear that the LMP was the future of sportscar racing, and Porsche got to work on their next challenger.

LMP 2000

The open-top roadster was the way to go, with BMW successfully campaigning their imaginatively named V12 LMR (a V12-powered Le Mans Roadster) to victory at the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans. In Weissach, project 9R3 was underway led by Norbert Singer and Herbert Ampferer, with Lola Composites constructing the carbon-fibre roadster. Penned by Dutch designer Wiet Huidekoper – the same man who worked on the road legal Porsche 962 with Jochen Dauer – the car would be built to the upcoming LMP900 regulations for Le Mans Prototypes with a minimum weight of 900kg. 

Race car design – especially for prototypes – prioritises function over form, yet to my eyes, the 9R3 a sight to behold. In a similar vein to the BMW V12 LMR and the ill-fated Mercedes-Benz CLR, the silhouette is made from gentle curves that run uninterrupted from the front splitter to the ducktail underneath the rear wing, with low sidepods that allow for fantastically prominent wheel arches to rise above the body. The right-hand side cockpit breaks the otherwise perfect symmetry, with a long fairing extending from the driver’s display down towards the front axle. The single rollover hoop incorporates the air intakes, and the raised engine cover is shrouded in a stretched teardrop cowling that gently falls towards the rear deck.

Initially intended for competition in the 1999 season, the 9R3 was designed with the venerable 3.2-litre turbocharged flat-six engine in mind. However, the “Type 935” motor was showing its age, having first been used in competition in the 1970s. When recalling the development of the car, designer Huidekoper said “If looks could kill I would not be around anymore, when I mentioned the traditional Porsche flat-six engine as a major weakness!” 

With Porsche knowing that they would have to change the powertrain or risk being uncompetitive, they searched for a suitable replacement. This, combined with the prospect of going up against race-proven cars in their second year of competition at Le Mans, meant that the project was paused.

However, in 1999 development restarted with a new engine onboard. Porsche opted to use a V10 that was developed for Formula 1 to the very same regulations that killed Group C prototype racing, but was never used. Originally a 3.5-litre unit, the capacity was increased to 5.5-litres, the F1-mandated pneumatic valves were removed and tweaks were made for longevity.

Even with the air restrictors fitted, the naturally aspirated engine would produce over 600 bhp. The package was further refined with new suspension, and the Le Mans Prototype was on track for a debut in the year 2000 – hence the name LMP 2000 was unofficially attached to the 9R3 project.

The beginning and the end

It looked as though the car would join the long list of victorious Porsche racers at Le Mans, but it never got the chance to put its style or substance to the test in a competitive setting. In May 1999, before the first car was completed, the project was cancelled once again – and this time for good.

The exact reasoning is still disputed, but the most commonly quoted story is that Ferdinand Piëch – then chairman of Audi and Volkswagen – wanted Porsche’s expertise to engineer a new large SUV. This joint-venture would give birth to the Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne and Volkswagen Touareg.

The SUV triplets would be mechanically related, but would target different parts of the market. The same cannot be said for the Porsche LMP 2000 project, which would have gone up against another new prototype from Audi.

The four rings made their Le Mans debut in 1999 with the R8R roadster and R8C coupé, scoring a third-place overall finish with the open-top racer. It is widely believed that Porsche were asked to park the 9R3 in order to give Audi a shot at Le Mans glory, and steer clear of top-class endurance racing for at least 10 years.

Although the plug had been pulled on the V10-powered roadster, Porsche allowed the car to be completed and given a brief test at the Weissach proving ground. The car that was designed to complete over 3,000 miles during the 24 Hours of Le Mans covered only 50 at the hands of Allan McNish and Bob Wolleck. Both drivers spoke positively about the car, but following their short stints in the cockpit, the car would be parked and placed into storage.

Aftermath

Following the curtailing of the LMP 2000 programme, Audi’s new R8 would win the 24 Hours of Le Mans five times outright, with a class win and second overall in 2003. Porsche would anger their fans but delight their accountants and newfound customers with the success of the Cayenne, and the jointly-developed SUV platform would be a strong seller for Audi and Volkswagen too.

The V10 engine would quickly find a new home in the rear of the Carrera GT Concept that was shown at the Paris Motor Show in the year 2000, and in the production car that followed in 2003 – now boasting an increased displacement of 5.7-litres. Porsche continued to find success in the GT categories at Le Mans and around the world, but in 2005 they introduced a brand new Le Mans Prototype called the RS Spyder, built to LMP2 regulations as opposed to LMP1 – and thus not competing for overall wins at Le Mans or directly against Audi.

Afterlife

The influence of the LMP 2000 was indirectly felt on the road and track for years, as the single completed car sat in storage in Germany for years, with no acknowledgement of its existence. A few grainy photos made their way to the media, but that was it. In 2016 more details and images emerged, and the car finally made its public debut in 2018 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

In November 2024, a quarter of a century on from its first shakedown test, a video was posted to YouTube titled “The return of the Porsche LMP 2000.” The car had been taken out of storage, returned to racing condition, and allowed to run once more.

The team of engineers and designers that had worked on the car in the late 1990s came together once more to see the 9R3 run on the Weissach test track once more with one of the original drivers at the wheel: Allan McNish.

Only 25 years after his first drive of the car, three-time Le Mans winner McNish said “It’s like I was 25 again…The faster you go, the more confidence you get from it.” He also commented on the sound of the engine which sounds best above 7,00rpm. Having watched the video 12 times now, I’m inclined to agree.

Porsche has teased that there is more to come from the LMP 2000 and I am itching to see what they have in store. While we may learn more about the intricate details of the car, we will never know exactly how the car would have fared against the formidable Audi R8 in its day. No naturally aspirated car has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall since the BMW V12 LMR in 1999, so was Porsche right to opt for a non-turbocharged engine as Audi brought their powerful yet efficient FSI direct injection technology to the circuit?

Perhaps the car’s racing results wouldn’t have been a forgone conclusion; I think it would be short sighted to assume that the LMP 2000 would have been more successful than the Audi R8 but fair to assume that it would’ve been a close rival with more development — the fact is, we’ll never know. Porsche’s RS Spyder went on to beat the LMP1 competition, winning the 12 Hours of Sebring overall in 2008, and the brand would finally return to the LMP1 category in 2014, taking win number 17 in 2015 with the 919 Hybrid. The legacy continues with the 963 which won almost every championship that it contested in 2024, but for me there will always be a missing link in the story of Porsche’s sportscar racing prowess: the 9R3, aka the LMP 2000.

Image credits: Porsche Newsroom, screenshots from the Porsche YouTube channel; Audi MediaCenter; Martin Lee via Wikimedia Commons.