As the 24 Hours of Le Mans celebrates its centenary, few stories from its illustrious past are more compelling than that of Jean Rondeau.

A Le Mans native, the Frenchman established his fledgling race team in 1976, producing Sports Prototypes bearing the name of his sponsor, Inaltera, a French interior furnishings company.

Class wins at the Circuit de la Sarthe ensued in 1976 and 1977, though at that point the departure of the sponsor resulted in the team’s name changing simply to Rondeau.

A further Le Mans class win followed in 1979 before Jean-Pierre Jaussaud and Rondeau himself piloted their M379B to a memorable overall victory in 1980; the first—and likely only ever—time the famous French race had been won by a driver in a car bearing their own name.

Designed jointly by chassis expert Don Foster and aerodynamicist Max Sardou, the M482 was the first Rondeau to have been conceived specifically as a Group C car.

It represented the company’s first foray into both monocoque design ...