I think that it's true to say that bad cars simply don't win Le Mans, but I guess you can judge it on how many cars were better/faster that fell away from a given event and allowed another car to win. Although I have issues with the Dauer Porsche I don't think it was a 'bad' car - the car itself wasn't the 'worst winner' at Le Mans.
Candidates for me include the 1952 300SL and 1975 Gulf Mirage mentioned above, but also the Lagonda that won in 1935. Again, it wasn't a bad car, but it shouldn't have beaten the Alfas. If the chasing Alfa had been given the right pit signals towards the end it quite possibly would have won.
I don't think that I'd count the '55 D-Type win as I think that it was as good, if not better than the 300SLR round Le Mans. Whether Hawthorn/Bueb would have been enough to see off the combination of Moss/Fangio is open to debate, of course, but the Jaguar would have been a factor.
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Originally Posted by jhansen
That's actually a very good observation MM. I was thinking about this the other day. The winning car was something like 19th on the grid and won on the back of reliability and mileage. The Saubers and Jags were the more complete cars and the Peugeots were on the rise.
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Don't agree with this. The C11s were faster and should have won, but behind them the Mazda was quick enough to see off the rest, including the Jaguars. The Peugeots were hopeless at Le Mans in 1991, though they did get better that year after they stole the XJR-14s aero package (just my opinio, not fact!). It is true that Mazda were helped by the rule/weight changes, but they had had some good Le Mans efforts before the win and the 787B was a pretty decent car.