With the 24 Hours of Le Mans set to take place this weekend, the track hopes that the influx of fans will also stir up some interest in the newly opened M24 Musée du Sport Automobile.

Formerly known as the Museum of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, M24 opened on May 27 after a year-long renovation that completely refurbished and expanded the facility. It is located right by the entrance to Circuit de la Sarthe.

“M24 is not only a major cog in today’s motorsport world, it is also a custodian of its history,” ACO boss Pierre Fillon proclaimed. He also expressed desire for the museum to become a “pinnacle of local tourism and culture and a source of prosperity.”

The M24 Museum boasts over 120 vehicles from auto racing’s history. While most of the collection naturally consists of sports cars, it also has wings for F1, IndyCar, and even rallying. The lattermost section features cars from both traditional rally and rally raids.

The museum’s description on the rally wing reads:

Rallying, a discipline of the unexpected, demands exceptional driving skills. It takes place far from closed circuits. On asphalt, on gravel or on snow, crews tackle the terrain as it is without a safety net and without practice!

Rallying tells a different story of motorsport. Successor to the first races held on open roads and from town to town, it remains arguably the discipline closest to its origins.

The Rally area invites you to discover this epic journey and the evolution of cars designed to cope with all kinds of terrains, where the quest for robustness, reliability and agility conditions the work of the engineers.

One such car is the Lancia Stratos GR IV of Björn Waldegård, who scored his first three WRC victories in the car while Lancia went on to claim back-to-back-to-back manufacturers’ titles from 1974 to 1976. Another is Yasuhiro Iwase’s Toyota Celica GT-Four ST185 Group A, with which he made up the back end of Toyota’s 1–2–3–4 at the 1993 Safari Rally. The Citroën Xsara that Sébastien Loeb drove to his first of nine WRC crowns in 2004 sits next to the Celica.

From the world of raids, prominently featured by itself is the Porsche 959 that René Metge drove to victory in the 1986 Paris–Dakar Rally. However, this will only be around for a limited time because the car is on loan from the Porsche Museum.

Other parts of the museum includes 4,667 1:43 scale models of every car to race the Le Mans 24, 1:1 dioramas, a workshop where museum cars are worked on, and a library containing racing documents and items.

“Our wish is to share this glorious history with those who love beautiful cars, with everyone who enjoys a new experience, and, most importantly, to pass on the legacy to the next generations,” said Richard Mille at the opening ceremony. His eponymous watchmaker collaborated with the ACO and architect Frédéric Audevard on the renovation. “I have collected, somewhat compulsively I must admit, a collection of cars, works of art, that retrace 70 years of human endeavor, technical prowess, feats of innovation and design. They are all beauty queens, that, like all masterpieces, convey emotion and magnify elegance.”

Tickets to the museum—separate from the Le Mans 24 itself—are €20 for adults but can be reduced to €15 for students, unemployed, and those with disabilities. Those between the ages of six and 17 pay €12 and children under six get in for free. Automobile Club de l’Ouest members get free admission for their first visit before having to pay €10 in the future. There is also a family deal that costs €58, plus other rates for private and corporate visits as well as tours.

When a race is set to take place, museum admission is free for week-long and weekend ticket holders. A €15 rate also exists for those attending just practice and qualifying.

Technically speaking, the museum won’t be the only place in Le Mans where rally raiders are present. Compagnie Saharienne was also invited by the ACO to bring its Toyota Land Cruisers that raced this year’s Dakar Classic and put them on display.

Featured image credit: Toyota