Japan's Kamui Kobayashi took the chequered flag, with team mates Mike Conway of Britain and Argentine Jose Maria Lopez watching on.
"Now, finally," gasped the former F1 driver as he crossed the line.
The Japanese manufacturer's number eight car -- with Swiss Sebastien Buemi, Japan's Kazuki Nakajima and New Zealander Brendon Hartley -- had won the last three Le Mans but had to settle for the runner-up position two laps behind today.
The Alpine A480-Gibson driven by Brazilian Andre Negrao and French pair Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxiviere completed the podium.
Kobayashi had qualified fastest in four of the last five Le Mans but until Sunday he and his team mates, the reigning world endurance champions, had yet to win the greatest race on the sportscar calendar.
Last year the crew lost half an hour in the garage with a turbo problem, that could have proved terminal, just after the halfway mark and finished third.
In 2019 the number seven car led most of the way but had to stop twice at the end of the race, once for a puncture and then because of a wrong tyre change during the initial stop which dropped it to second place.
"We had so many chances to win Le Mans but we always lost, and finally we won," Kobayashi told record nine-times Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, now working for Eurosport.
"I think we are more together as a team," he added when asked what they had done differently. "We can't do anything special in Le Mans but we try to be together, we believe in each other as a team.
"I think we are stronger as a team. I think that's why we made it this time."
This year's Le Mans, watched by 50,000 fans after racing behind closed doors in 2020, is the 89th edition and the first of the new Hypercar era, with Toyota lining up as clear favourites -- albeit in a race where little is certain.
Only five Hypercars, the replacement for the old LMP1 category, were in the 61-car field but that is set to change with Peugeot entering the fray next year followed in 2023 by Audi, Ferrari and Porsche and more to come.
