Altaya 1/43 Matra MS670B LM74 Le Mans Race Car (MAGAX02)

The French Equipe Gitanes Team, Matra 670B, driven by French drivers Henri Pescarolo and Gerard Larrousse was leading the 1974 Le Mans 24hr at dawn. Around 10.00am the Porsche 911 Turbo Carrera running in second place lost its fifth gear, causing the car to lose around 40 seconds per lap to the leading Matra. But just before 11.00am, Pescarolo had a gearbox failure, the Porsche designed Matra gearbox problem was easy to repair, but when Pescarolo returned to the race, he had lost 45 minutes. The Porsche 911 Turbo was now on the same lap, which was a surprising achievement for a road-car derivative car against the prototypes. Rain began to fall during the final hour and Pescarolo managed to build a six-lap lead over the Porsche by the end.

It was Matra's and Pescarolo's third consecutive Le Mans victory. At the end of the season Matra announced its retirement from racing.

Altaya 1/43 Audi R8 LMO5 Le Mans Race Car (MAGAX08)

Champion Racing is a sports car racing team based in Pompano Beach, Florida, USA. founded in 1994 by Dave Maraj as the motorsport wing of the Champion Motors car dealership. Champion Racing started running Le Mans Prototypes in 2001 with the Audi R8, which led them to victory in the 2004 and 2005 American Le Mans Series, as well as the 2005 24 Hours of Le Mans.

With car #3 driven by Tom Kristensen (DK), JJ Lehto (FIN) and Marco Werner (D), this would give Tom Kristensen an absolute record of seven victories including six in a row, pulling ahead of legend Jacky Ickx who had a total of 6 wins. This would also be the first of a triple run for Marco Werner at Le Mans in this event, as he went on to win in 2006 and 2007.

Altaya 1/43 Lotus Elise GT1 Le Mans Race Car (MAGAX12)

The British GT1 Lotus Racing team, decided, due to reliability problems, to only enter this one car #49, into the 1997 Le Mans 24hr race. The car driven by Jan Lammers (NL), Mike Hezemans (NL) and Alexander Grau (D), unfortunately failed to finish the race, due to an oil leak after 121 laps.

The Lotus Elise GT1 made it's debut at the first round of the 1997 FIA GT Championship season, of which they entered three cars and all failed to finish due to alternator problems. Unfortunately reliability was going to be a problem throughout the season and the factory team ended the season without any points. Following the 1997 season, Lotus and its parent company Proton, decided that the Lotus GT1 was not only lacking in pace in comparison to Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, and the older McLarens, but that it was also extremely expensive. The project was therefore cancelled and the factory team folded.

Altaya 1/43 Peugeot 905 1992 Le Mans Race Car (MAGAX14)

Peugeot Talbot Sport established their sportscar team at Velizy-Villacoublay, France and in 1988 launched the 905 project, to develop a sportscar to begin competing in the 1991 season. The 905 was introduced in 1990 and finished second in the 1991 World Sportscar Championship season.

In 1992 Peugeot Talbot Sport won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with drivers Derek Warwick (UK), Yannick Dalmas (F) and Mark Blundell (UK). They also won the World Sportscar Championship that year, thanks to Warwick, Dalmas, Philippe Alliot and Mauro Baldi.

The championship did not run in 1993, but Peugeot were able to take the top three places at the 1993 24hr Le Mans event, after that Peugeot Talbot Sport subsequently pulled out of sportscar racing, meanwhile Jean Todt left Peugeot for Scuderia Ferrari.

Altaya 1/43 Chevrolet Corvette C5R LM06 Le Mans Race Car (MAGAX15)

The Luc Alphand Aventures Chevrolet Corvette C5-R, was an ex-factory chassis bought by the French Olympian Luc Alphand for use in the Le Mans Series in 2006. The car #72 performed well, earning two second place finishes and a third in the five race season. This was enough to finish third in the championship standings. The team also entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with an all french team of drivers Luc Alphand, Patrice Goueslard and Jerome Policand, managing to finish an impressive third in class behind a factory Corvette C6.R and Aston Martin DBR9.

Luc Alphand started as a World Alpine skier fom 1984 to 1997, in the last year of his competetive skiing career he would win the world cup. After retireing from competitive skiing, he started a career in auto racing. First in the Nissan Micra Stars Cup (1997 1998), then in the European Le Mans Series (2001), the FIA GT Championship (2002), and the Lamborghini Supertrophy (2002). He also won the 2006 Dakar Rally, in which he had finished runner-up a year earlier.

Altaya 1/43 BMW M1 LM81 Le Mans Race Car (MAGAX20)

In the late 1970s, Italian manufacturer Lamborghini entered into an agreement with BMW to build a production racing car in sufficient quantity for homologation. The result was sold to the public from 1978 to 1981, as the BMW M1, It was the only mid-engined BMW to be mass produced. Built under the Motorsport division of BMW as a homologation special for sports car racing, the body was designed by Giugiaro, taking inspiration from the 1972 BMW Turbo show car. Originally, BMW commissioned Lamborghini to work out the details of the car's chassis, assemble prototypes and manufacture the vehicles, but Lamborghini's financial position meant that BMW reassumed control over the project in April 1978, after seven prototypes were built. Only 456 production M1s were built, making it one of BMW's rarest models.

Racing under the team banner as BMW Italy and BMW France at the 1981 Le Mans 24hr race, car #51 came home 5th in it's group and in 16th place overall, driven by Philippe Alliot (F), Bernard Darniche (F) and Johnny Cecotto (VEN).

Johnny Cecotto was an all round racer, with great ability. He started his career racing motorcycles during the 1970's, racing at all levels. After the 1980 season, he decided to quit motorcycling to pursue a career racing cars, he retired with twelve 500cc GP pole positions in 27 starts, giving him one of the highest pole position per start ratios in motorcycle Grand Prix history. Starting in Formula Two, Cecotto would soon move on up to Formula One and participated in 23 races after making his debut on 13th March 1983, for the Theodore Racing team. He had a promising start as he scored a sixth place in only his second race. For the 1984 season, he joined the Toleman racing team with Ayrton Senna as his team mate, but while qualifying for the British Grand Prix, he crashed heavily, breaking both of his legs which would effectively put an end to his F1 career. After recovering from his injuries, Cecotto would make a flourishing return to competition in 1986, as a Touring Car driver, of which he would end up racing in the World (87), Italian (89 as champion), DTM (88-92), STW (94 as champion), BTTC (95), STW (98 as champion again) and the German V8Star Series (01/02) of which he would take the championship both years running. In the 1990 DTM he would probably of won the championship, if it hadn't been for an unknown youngster called Michael Schumacher, crashing into Cecotto's car during the first lap.

Altaya 1/43 Alpine A210 LM66 Le Mans Race Car (MAGAX26)

French Drivers Jacques Cheinisse and Roger de Lageneste, would bring the Alpine A210 #44 car home in 11th place overall, for the French racing team Ecurie Savin-Calberson, at the 1966 Le Mans 24hr race event.

1966 would be the year for the MkII Ford GT40, taking the first 3 places at the event.

Altaya 1/43 Alpine Renault A110 LM68 Le Mans Race Car (MAGAX30)

With all French drivers, Jacques Bourdon, Maurice Nussbaumer and Michel Pouteaux, the French Ecurie Leopard team, finished 17th overall, but was not classified as they hadn't completed 70% of the full race when retiring after 215 laps

The race itself would be won, by Fords GT40 driven by Lucien Bianchi and Pedro Rodriguez. Porsche's best finisher was a private 2.2L Porsche 907 in second, followed by a works 908 in third, both just one lap behind the winning GT40. Alfa Romeo's performance was impressive with three cars finishing, the Nanni Galli/Ignazio Giunti T33 in fourth overall, whilst the other two followed in fifth and sixth.

Altaya 1/43 Nissan R390GTI LM98 Le Mans Race Car (MAGAX31)

The 1998 Le Mans 24hr had seen a significant increase in manufacturer involvement. Porsche and Mercedes-Benz remained with upgraded cars in both GT1 and LMP, Toyota sent three of their new, extremely fast GT-One racing cars, while BMW in association with WilliamsF1, launched the new BMW V12 LM, the United States was also represented properly with a two car team from Panoz, with Ford powered Esperante GTR-1s, Whilst Nissan sent 4 of their new R390 GT1s.

The R390GTI car #33 was entered into the 1998 24hr Le Mans by Nissan Motorsports and British racing team Tom Walkinshaw Racing. The car was driven by an all Japanese team of Satoshi Motoyama, Takuya Kurosawa and Masami Kageyama, but they could only managed 10th overall.

The Nissans and outdated McLarens were unable to match the pace of the upgraded Porsche 911 GT1s, who won the race as the faster cars from Mercedes, BMW and Toyota retired with mechanical difficulties and accident damage.

Altaya 1/43 Alpine Renault A442B LM78 Le Mans Race Car (MAGAX33)

After entering earlier variants of the A442 in the Le Mans race, Renault finally won on its third occasion in the 1978 event, in the hands of Didier Pironi and Jean-Pierre Jaussaud.

Also entered in 1978 was the updated Renault Alpine A443 model, essentially an A442 chassis but powered by a new 2138 cc engine. From the start the A443 was the class of the field, lapping in under 3 minutes 40 seconds, Jabouille took fastest lap at 3:34, before the A443 engine finally broke in the 18th hour. This was the second Renault retirement, after the Bell/Jarier A442A works car had suffered transmission failure at the half-way point. However, fortunately for Renault, Pironi and Jaussaud in the A442B were well placed to inherit the lead.

Following this all-French victory in the premier French motorsport event, Renault withdrew from sports car racing to concentrate their efforts in Formula One.

Altaya 1/43 Pescarlo C60 LM06 Leob Le Mans Race Car Model (MAGAX35)

Altaya 1/43 Porsche 962C LM87 Yver Le Mans Race Car Model (MAGAX38)

Altaya 1/43 Chevrolet Corvette LM72 Greenwood Le Mans Race Car Model (MAGAX40)

Altaya 1/43 Alfa Romeo 8C LM32 Sommer Le Mans Race Car Model (MAGAX41)

Altaya 1/43 Inaltera GT LM77 Ragnotti Le Mans Race Car Model (MAGAX43)

Altaya 1/43 Panoz LMP-1 Roadster S LM00 Katoh Le Mans Race Car Model (MAGAX44)

Altaya 1/43 Aston Martin DBR9 LM06 Lamy Le Mans Race Car Model (MAGAX48)

Altaya 1/43 Rondeau M379B LM80 Martin Le Mans Race Car Model (MAGAX49)

Altaya 1/43 Mirage Renault GR8 LM77 Schuppan Le Mans Race Car Model (MAGAX52)

Altaya 1/43 BMW M1 GR4 LM Rousselot Le Mans Race Car Model (MAGAX55)