Wyer also chose not to bring his team's Gulf-Mirages because their Weslake V12 engines were not ready and under-prepared. Although everyone had been outclassed by the Porsche 917s in 1971, Alfa Romeo had proven the most competitive, even getting three wins that season. For 1972 they had developed the latest iteration of the Tipo 33, the open-top T33/3. Designer Carlo Chiti used a tubular chassis rather than a full monocoque making them narrower and 50 kg lighter. The 3-litre V8 developed 445 bhp. The team picked up a number of ex-Porsche drivers for the three cars entered: Vic Elford/Helmut Marko, Rolf Stommelen/”Nanni” Galli and Nino Vaccarella/Andrea de Adamich. Matra, like Jaguar in the 1950s, chose to concentrate its efforts for the prestige of a Le Mans victory. The latest version of the 660, the MS660C had been over a second slower than Ickx's Ferrari at the test weekend. But a new model, the MS670 was entered for the race. The 3-litre V12 was detuned for the race down to 450 bhp, pushing it to 310 kp/h (195 mph) on the Mulsanne Straight. With the French media stirring up a patriotic fervour, team director Gérard Ducarouge took no chances and bought 4 cars and 60 crew. Aerodynamic long-tail versions were prepared for Jean-Pierre Beltoise/Chris Amon and François Cevert/Howden Ganley while Henri Pescarolo/Graham Hill (back at Le Mans for the first time since 1966) had a short-tail version. The fourth car was the reliable 660C, given to Jean-Pierre Jabouille/ David Hobbs. Porsche was now focussing its efforts on its 917 Can-Am project. However, Reinhold Joest got considerable inofficial factory assistance with his 908 LH entry, and sponsored by ATE. The three-year old car had been owned by Jo Siffert who had been killed less than a year ago, and was loaned from the Schlumpf Collection. It was refitted by Porsche with a new 3-litre engine capable of 360 bhp. Other customer teams brought Porsche Group 5 cars: the Spanish Escuderia Montjuich had a 908/03, André Wicky’s Swiss team had one of several 908/02s as well as an older 907. Jo Bonnier, Lola’s European agent, convinced Eric Broadley to develop a 3-litre version of its successful T210. Designed by Patrick Head and John Barnard, the new T280 used the Cosworth DFV engine. It was very fast and had easily won the four-hour race at the Test Weekend. With works-support, Bonnier entered two cars: