Next year Porsche will return to the Le Mans 24 Hours with a brand-new LMP1 contender. To help you understand why it is such a big deal, Porsche has put together a series of videos chronicling the glorious days of their iconic Le Mans racer, the 917. This is one of the good ones, a tribute to the 1971 event, known as the race of records.

The 917 in that race featured many advanced features such as a magnesium tubular chassis that weighed only 42 kg. That helped the car hitting an incredible – for the time – top speed of 250 km/h during a fastest lap run. It also achieved an average speed of 222 km/h throughout the race which lasted for years and years.

We can’t wait to see what Porsche has in mind for their 2014 Le Mans racer.