one for himself and 1971 winner Gijs van Lennep (released from Mirage for the race) and the other for Gérard Larrousse/Hughes de Fierlandt. Sponsored by Swiss cheese, they were this year’s art-cars painted up with gruyere cheese-holes. There were also a pair of privateer entries. After a positive first run at Le Mans the previous year, Brit Alain de Cadenet decided to build his own car to race. He employed Brabham designer Gordon Murray to build a car around the Cosworth DFV (developing 390 bhp) and Brabham BT33 suspension. The lightest of the 3-litre prototypes, De Cadenet got sponsorship from Duckhams Oil and the car was just ready in time for the race. Guy Ligier, keen to progress his JS-2 GT racecar, approached Citroën about getting a Maserati engine – whom they had bought out three years previously. They obliged and three 3-litre V6 JS-2s were present. Because insufficient numbers had been produced it had to run in the Group 5 category. Ferrari had not released its Group 5 car to its customer teams yet, but had been able to homologate the 365 GTB/4 “Daytona” as a GT car, and nine of those cars were entered by the Ferrari agents of six different countries. These comprised Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team (NART), Jacques Swaters’ Ecurie Francorchamps, Georges Filipinetti's Swiss team, Colonel Ronnie Hoare's Maranello Concessionaires from London and Charles Pozzi’s Paris-based team. Chevrolet had five entries this year to take on the Ferrari challenge. The French teams of Henri Greder (once again with Marie-Claude Beaumont as his co-driver) and the Ecurie Léopard returned. American John Greenwood also brought a pair of specially lightened Corvettes that proved to be very fast, reaching 330 kp/h (210 mph) on the Mulsanne Straight. They ran on standard BF Goodrich radial road-tyres. Their competitor, Goodyear tyres, had run successfully with the Florida-based English Racing Team winning the GT division at Daytona and Sebring. They asked NART if they could use an entry to get to Le Mans, who agreed as long as the car displayed the Ferrari motif on the side of the car. A new manufacturer for Le Mans was the Italian De Tomaso company. The newly homologated Pantera had a Ford 5.3-litre V8, pushing out 330 bhp was less powerful than the Ferrari and Chevrolet competition. Four cars were entered and the Spanish Escuderia Montjuich ones had strong works support. In the