Lorraine-Dietrich

Heir to the Alsatian industrial dynasty De Dietrich, whose automobile activities date back to the 1890s — a young engineer named Ettore Bugatti learned his trade there — the car-making branch took the name Lorraine-Dietrich in 1905, with the Cross of Lorraine as its emblem. Based in Lunéville, the marque established itself in the 1920s as one of the jewels of the French grand automobile, and it was at the 24 Hours of Le Mans that it wrote its name into history. Its weapon was the B3-6, a rugged 3.5-litre six-cylinder built for endurance. In 1925, in the third edition of the race, Gérard de Courcelles and André Rossignol won outright, giving Lorraine-Dietrich its first Le Mans victory. The following year, in 1926, the marque did it again: Robert Bloch and André Rossignol triumphed in turn, at a record pace for the era. Lorraine-Dietrich thus became the first manufacturer in history to win Le Mans in two consecutive years, and André Rossignol the first driver to win the race twice — two founding milestones of the race's roll of honour. Those triumphs marked the marque's sporting peak; it withdrew from front-line competition shortly afterwards, just as Bentley was taking the ascendancy at La Sarthe. The company progressively redirected its activities towards aero engines, a field in which the Lorraine name would distinguish itself for years, before definitively abandoning car production in the mid-1930s. If the wider public has gradually forgotten its name, Le Mans historians know what the race owes to Lorraine-Dietrich: its victories of 1925 and 1926 helped establish the event's emerging status as a great classic, and its back-to-back wins opened a record book that the world's greatest marques are still striving to write a century later. Its B3-6, victorious twice on the same circuit, deserves its place among the true founding cars of endurance racing.

• Country : FRA
• Founded : 1905
• Le Mans wins : 2
• First win : 1925
• Last win : 1926