sports car

The Porsche brand has come to be synonymous with precision, power and best-in-class handling, making it a key benchmark for performance cars. While that's great for Porsche owners, it also means every manufacturer with an eye toward building a quick machine starts to compare itself to the iconic brand from Stuttgart. Competitors across the spectrum have stepped up the game to knock on the German builder's garage door with more horsepower and comparable handling in less expensive packages.

The run-up to the annual 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race is always a nail-biting enterprise for race teams. Naturally, techs are most concerned with assuring cars' ability to sustain the day-night race, which is the ultimate test for GT cars and sportscar prototypes that will wind through the Circuit of the Sarthe -- on a combination of racetrack and public roads -- in Le Mans, Sarthe, France. This year there's an added kink keeping teams up nights. It appears the gods of aerodynamics have been sending LeMans prototype-class racecars into the ether with a cosmic finger flick.