The French don’t often get much credit for their automobiles. Least of all here at The Lego Car Blog, even though France pretty much invented motor racing, the world’s most famous race is held there every year, and of course they’re (sort of) responsible for the world’s fastest production car too. Well today we put that right, with one of the most amazing cars from the early years of motoring.

Powered by a 200hp V8, the Darracq LSR was little more than a enormous engine bolted to two girders, an approach that we like the sound of very much. It set the Land Speed Record in 1905 at almost 200km/h and it still exists today, regularly tackling the Goodwood Festival of Speed hillclimb almost completely sideways, despite coming from a time long before drifting was a thing.

This neat Technic replica of the monstrous French racer comes from Nikolaus Löwe of Flickr, and it’s genuinely about as technically advanced as the real car, which isn’t hard. Take a closer look at one of the forgotten heroes of motor racing via the link above.