The 24 Heures de Mans has finally been won by someone other than Audi. Porsche, in their second Le Mans since returning last year, claimed an amazing outright victory in 2015. Of course, Audi still kind of won as the two brands are effectively the same company – following VW’s recent take-over to continue their plans for world domination – but it was nice nevertheless.

Back when Porsche were an independent auto-maker though, they were even more successful, largely thanks to this – the awesome 917. This particular car, raced by Martini Racing and driven by Helmut Marko and Gijs Van Lennep, won Le Mans outright in 1971.

The Lego recreation shown here is the work of prolific race-car builder Greg 998, and it includes a wonderfully detailed chassis, cockpit and engine, as well as the brilliant custom-decalled exterior pictured above. You can see more of the 917 and Greg’s other racing cars on MOCpages at the link above.

Le Mans, probably the greatest motor race in the world, is better than ever this year. Alongside the ubiquitous Audis in LMP1 there’ll be Toyota, Nissan and Porsche, all running hybrids in a huge variety of configurations. Formula 1 take note; giving manufacturers the freedom to innovate in line with their own skills is what creates great racing. Whereas forcing everyone to make exactly the same car with a different paint scheme blows goats.

Anyway, Porsche’s current challenger features a tiny flat-4 turbo in conjunction with some very tricksy electrical witchcraft. It’s a very different beast to the car that Porsche are probably most famous for; the monstrous 1970s flat-12 powered 917.

The brilliant 917 above is the work of Flickr’s Manuel Cara, who has recreated the car that took the 1971 Le Mans overall victory in stunning detail, including the iconic Martini livery. The full gallery is well worth a look – you can see all the images of Manuel’s beautiful Martini-Racing 917 on Flickr via the link above.