Norbert Singer must rank as one of the most successful race engineers in Porsche’s long and glittering motorsport history. Porsche Road & Race spoke to him about his four-decade career with Porsche, the race cars he helped develop and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. “It’s been a long journey,” Norbert Singer said with a smile, and how right he was. Growing up in the 1950s and … [Read more...]
Porsche 956/962 at Le Mans – Logistics Part II
In 1982, Porsche introduced the Type 956, the race car manufacturer’s entrant in the newly created Group C racing series which commenced that season. The new car scored a second place on its debut at Silverstone that year, and followed this up a month later with a clean sweep of the podium at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The rest, as they say, is history as the 956 and its modified … [Read more...]
Hippie Porsche power launches a Le Mans legacy
While diplomats and cartographers may technically show the roads around Le Mans as French soil, Porsche has laid claim to the winding bit of pavement that comprises the race track and especially victory lane. Since 1951, when a silver Porsche 356 clocked up its very first class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the German manufacturer has gone on to score more class and outright … [Read more...]
Porsche 956/962 remembered
The decline of Group 6 and the growth of Group C saw the emergence of what is today widely regarded as the most entertaining and successful era in modern motorsport. Group C ran from 1982 to 1992, a decade that saw some of the most innovative and exciting engineering solutions to race car development imaginable. In this feature, Porsche 956/962 remembered, we look at some of … [Read more...]
White Lightning!
The origins of the 1998 Porsche 911 GT1 Le Mans winner can be traced back to a roadgoing version of the Group C 962 launched five years earlier. In order to homologate the 911 GT1/98, the FIA required a single street legal version of the race car to be made. You could call it ‘White Lightning’ because this road legal version of the race car had a top speed of 193 mph (310 … [Read more...]
Porsche Rennsport Reunion VI – Laguna Seca 2018
It’s hard to know where to begin when writing a report on Porsche Rennsport Reunion VI. It was both an emotional and a sensory overload! A reunion with people not seen for a while, and the historical impact of all the rare cars. This was the sixth iteration put on by Porsche, and just when you think you had seen it all, Porsche improved it yet again. Rennsport was … [Read more...]
Porsche 935/78 Moby Dick – A Legend in its own Time
Group 5 rules offered manufacturers a great deal of freedom to modify their cars in the Silhouette class. At Porsche, Norbert Singer pushed the rules to the limit, and gave us the Porsche 935/78 Moby Dick, truly a legend in its own time. Introduction In the 1970s, Porsche had several things going for it on the motorsport stage. Firstly, they had built up a wealth of … [Read more...]
Porsche 935/2.0 ‘Baby’
Ernst Fuhrmann’s requirement to develop a significantly updated GT race car in 1977, would present a number of challenges for the Porsche race department. Just to make things interesting, the new car was to race in a class in which they had not competed for almost a decade. But the subsequent work resulted in the creation of one of Porsche’s universal favourites, the 935/2.0 … [Read more...]
Porsche 911 GT1/98 – winning Le Mans in 1998
The Porsche 911 GT1/98 Le Mans winning car had its origins in a roadgoing version of the Group C 962, the Dauer 962 Le Mans GT. To trace the timeline of this successful race car, it is necessary to go back to 1993 when Norbert Singer attended the Frankfurt Motor Show (IAA). At the IAA, Singer saw the Dauer 962 Le Mans GT road car that racer/constructor Jochen Dauer had … [Read more...]
