Welcome to project 20/24. 20 personalities from the history of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, nominating their favourite car from the race ahead of the 2024 edition, for me to illustrate.

You can follow along on my Instagram: /jakeyorath

02/24: 1997 TWR WSC95 (chassis 001) Chosen by: Stefan Johansson Best finish: 1st, 1996, 1997 Team: Joest Racing Driven by: Alexander Wurz, Davy Jones, Manuel Reuter (1996), Stefan Johansson, Michele Alboreto, Tom Kristensen (1997)

It’s an odd thing to suggest that a winner of a race as famous as Le Mans, as recently as the 1990s, could be described as “obscure”, but the TWR WSC95 is kinda obscure. It’s a jumble of contradictions: a Porsche, but also a Jaguar; unloved, but also cherished; a TWR car, but also a Joest one; an unfancied Frankenstein’s monster that belied its bizarre origins to win back-to-back Le Mans. It’s also the favourite Le Mans car of one very accomplished Swede.

“The WSC95 obviously brings great memories for me, as we won the race in it, but it was an incredibly good car,” says Stefan Johansson, who won the ’97 Le Mans 24 Hours in Joest’s #7. “The bones of the car were very good. It was easy to drive, and very predictable in all conditions.”

The car began life as a Jaguar XJR-14. The -14 was the last Group C Jaguar, an absolute monster built by Tom Walkinshaw’s TWR to the 3.5 litre rules, and it obliterated the World Championship field in 1991. In ’92, it won races in IMSA GTP, and then it was mothballed at the beginning of 1993 when Jaguar pulled their funding from sportscar racing.

The US arm of TWR had run Jaguar’s GTP effort and after the end of the programme had very little to do, so in 1994 they got on the tools, and the phones. As in politics, so in racing, as a new era began with decapitations. As the new direction of sports prototype racing would be topless, the XJR-14 had its roof removed, and because the Jaguar’s Cosworth F1 motor would not be legal in the new era, team boss Tony Dowe convinced Porsche North America to send him a motor. He wanted to see how it would fit in the new, open top chassis. It fit very well, and the ball was rolling.

The car was, by regulation, much simpler than its group C ancestor, with a flat floor and far less downforce. It was, effectively, a Porsche 962 engine bolted to an XJR-14 chassis and an all-new gearbox – a strange hybrid of the two most successful sportscar racing brands of the 1980s – with clean, uncluttered bodywork. By the end of 1994, the car had been shaken down and was clearly pretty good. It was ready to race.

IMSA’s ’95 championship opener would be the 24 Hours of Daytona, but despite Porsche backing, a two-car entry and a crack team of drivers, it didn’t race. The series organisers hampered the car too much after testing and the team knew they had no chance of winning, so the WSC95 was mothballed. Again.

That could’ve been the end of the story, but Le Mans veteran and long-term Porsche stalwart and partner Reinhold Joest had other ideas. Joest asked Porsche if he could borrow the two cars and run them at the 1996 24 Hours of Le Mans. Porsche agreed, and promised that he could keep a car if he won the race. The Stuttgart brand leant some wind tunnel time, and with a load of track testing in advance of the race, Joest Racing squeezed every ounce of performance before preparing the cars meticulously for June.

Reinhold still has a WSC95 in his collection. In 1996 with Alexander Wurz, Davy Jones and Manuel Reuter driving, chassis 001, wearing dark blue and the #7, skipped not a single beat and finished a lap clear of Porsche’s all-new, all-singing, all-dancing, all-conquering 911 GT1.

In ’97, 001 won again, still #7 but this time painted white and with Johansson sharing with old Ferrari team-mate Michele Alboreto and an upstart Dane: Tom Kristensen.

“It was an emotional comeback to Le Mans for me,” says Johansson. “To race with my old friend and team-mate Michele, and to be reacquainted with Reinhold Joest again, was great. I’d driven for him in the ‘80s, before my F1 career.”

It was the fourth car, at the time, to back-to-back Le Mans wins with the same chassis. It was Joest’s second 24-hour repeat – his team had achieved the same feat in 1984 and ’85 with the Porsche 956.

TWR WSC95 chassis 001 was entered in three races as a WSC95, and won all of them – Le Mans twice, and an international sportscar race at Donington Park in 1997. As XJR-14 chassis 691, it had won in the World Sportscar Championship and IMSA GTP, and it represented Porsche officially at Le Mans and Petit Le Mans in Porsche’s 50th year, taking a podium at the Atlanta enduro.

Today, it’s restored to its 1997 specification, and remains part of Joest’s collection.