Le Mans Classic, 2nd-5th July 2026: Big Fun in the French Sun

Le Mans. A name that holds immense significance for petrolheads, steeped in myth and legend, and tinged with both exhilarating triumph and crushing tragedy. To those of us who can’t help but breathe a little more deeply at the sight of a car—any car—hammering down the Mulsanne Straight, Le Mans is a deeply special place. It’s an automotive cathedral, a place of pilgrimage, and the setting for titanic battles fought at the highest level of motorsport. Scores are settled in the dead of night at 200mph, with no quarter given and none asked.

Of course, while one of the greatest attractions of the world’s most famous endurance race is the drama it serves up year after year, there’s something especially magical about looking back through its history. Those glory days of motor racing produced some of the most iconic editions of this fabled event. While it’s unquestionably brilliant that the 24 Hours of Le Mans continues to thrive, it’s impossible not to romanticise those halcyon years when, as Jackie Stewart so memorably put it, “when sex was safe and motor racing was bloody dangerous!”

Thankfully, the Le Mans Classic has been keeping that raucous, cavalier spirit alive since 2002. As the name suggests, the event celebrates the legends of years gone by, bringing many of the Circuit de la Sarthe’s most famous machines back to the place where they made history. By almost any measure, it’s as close to time travel as we’re ever likely to get.

Naturally, such a storied event has long occupied a prominent place in the collective consciousness of Retropower. With the launch of Retropower Club earlier this year, the 2026 edition (the first to run under the new Le Mans Classic Legend format, featuring sports cars from the last fifty years) felt like an opportunity too good to miss. So, naturally, we went.

Being Retropower Club, we weren’t about to do things by halves. The plan was for several members of the Retropower team to make the journey together, with George and Luke choosing to drive their own cars to northern France. Callum joined the convoy at the wheel of a rented RV, while Pete brought up the rear in the Retropower van, packed to the gunwales with beer, beef and Roundstone Coffee. Suffice to say, we were exceptionally well prepared.

Fast forward to Thursday morning and a bleary-eyed collection of bodies clad in Retropower merchandise began assembling at the Folkestone Eurotunnel terminal. Coffee was consumed in generous quantities as excitement steadily built. Part of that excitement came from the weekend that lay ahead, but it was certainly helped along by the incredible procession of Le Mans-bound machinery gathering around us. There was, however, one remaining mystery: whether George—already running late after an unavoidable call of nature—would actually make the train.

He did. Just.

Our CAD hero arrived with barely five minutes to spare, his 100 Series Land Cruiser screeching into the terminal to cheers and laughter from the rest of the Retropower contingent. With that crisis averted, our attention turned to another member of the group, Paul Briscoe, whose RV was so enormous it had been directed to its own dedicated section of the train.

The journey beneath the English Channel passed without incident and, before long, we were rolling across northern France in convoy, collectively admiring—and enthusiastically commenting on—the superb French autoroute network. By around 7pm we arrived at Epinettes Campsite, where an impressively comfortable and exceptionally well-catered little Retropower village quickly took shape.

The anticipation of the weekend ahead kept everyone talking long into the evening, but with several busy days (and even longer nights) ahead of us, not to mention a 4am start that morning, most people sensibly called it a night at around 1am.

Friday dawned bright and exceptionally hot. Indeed, it set the tone for the rest of the event, with daytime temperatures rarely dropping below 27°C all weekend.

Callum wasted no time firing up the grill and, after being fuelled by bacon and eggs, our assortment of Club members ventured into the Circuit de la Sarthe for a leisurely mooch. It gave us the chance to admire the staggering lengths the organisers go to in recreating the glory days of Le Mans. Countless period details—from shops and petrol stations to bars and paddock gathering points—had been painstakingly dressed to look as though they’d been transported directly from the sepia-tinted 1970s.

After several hours spent gawping at the great and the good of the sports car world being coaxed into life, the Club contingent returned to base for further sustenance—read: beer and burgers—in preparation for the long night of race car watching ahead. A boiling-hot afternoon gave way to a far more tolerable dusk and, with it, the perfect conditions in which to watch the cream of post-1976 sports car racing thunder into action.

A good portion of our contingent remained trackside well into the early hours of Saturday morning, utterly captivated by the visceral sights and sounds of Group C Porsches, McLaren GTs and a host of other legendary machinery. And who could blame them?

Saturday brought more of the same: more beer, more barbecued meat, and more glorious sights, smells and sounds from some of the most beloved eras in motor racing history. A trip to the Mulsanne Straight soon became a long-term posting, with most of us simply unable to tear ourselves away from the thunderous sensory assault delivered first by the Group C icons of the 1980s and then by a grid full of fire-belching NASCARs. The latter might have been far from their traditional oval habitat, but there could be no denying the spectacle they brought to this normally quiet corner of rural France.

The afternoon gave way to one final night of car-and-beer-based hijinks, with time spent both trackside and among the myriad bars, band stages and DJ sets scattered throughout the infield. Cherished memories were forged, forgotten, then recalled and remade all over again several times before the sun rose once more, bringing with it the end of a truly remarkable event.

Le Mans Classic has always been about more than simply watching old racing cars. It’s about celebrating the history, culture and community that surrounds one of motorsport’s greatest events. Experiencing it alongside Retropower Club—with good friends, great food, exceptional machinery and more than a few cold beers—made it all the more memorable.

We’ll be back, and we hope you’ll consider coming with us.