The genius behind the Porsche 917, 935, 956, 962 and GT1

More importantly, he can rightly be regarded as the architect of the racing machines that notched up the majority of those successes. He subsequently worked on the Porsche RS Spyder, a class winner at Le Mans in privateer hands in the 2000s, and the continued as a race engineer — and successfully so — beyond his retirement from Porsche at the end of 2004. Today he remains a consultant to the race organiser, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest.

Singer will tell you that he wasn't designer; "not a drawingboard designer" are the words he uses. But he did oversee the design of a succession of successful Porsche racing sportscars from the 911 Carrera RSR that spawned the Group 5 935 monsters of the 1970s, through the 956 and 962C Group C cars in the '80s and a line of off-the-wall GT machinery in the '90s. 

Senior engineer was the title on his business card, but in today's world he would be called technical director or at least some kind of project leader. Because that's what he did at Porsche's Weissach motorsport headquarters. He led development of the cars that claimed so many victories at Le Mans and beyond.

Singer arrived at Porsche from university in March 1970. He wouldn't be present when the German manufacturer finally notched up its first outright Le Mans victory that summer, but he did have a hand in the modifications that turned the 917 into a winner there.

He was immediately set to work making the car's fuel system more efficient. His next job was addressing the cooling of the gearbox. A few months later Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood triumphed in their Porsche Salzburg-entered 917K.

Porsche liked the results of the young engineer's labours. Before the end of 1972, he was given his first project to manage. It was Singer's job to ready the new 911 Carrera RSR for competition, a car that won the Daytona, Sebring and Targa Florio endurance blue ribands in quick succession at the start of its career.

The RSR led into Porsche's assault on the Group 5 Special Production class belatedly introduced for 1976.
The category, recalls Singer "was a nice playground" for an engineer.

"When you looked closely at the regulations, you realised you could do so much," he says. "Which we did step by step, and ended up with the 'Moby Dick'."

Singer is, of course, talking about the whale-like final race version of the 935 to roll out of Weissach.

Porsche left the 935 to its customers for 1979, but company boss Ernst Fuhrmann saw an opportunity to win Le Mans by bringing the 936 out of retirement. The car didn't win — a privateer 935 did — but the marque put that right when the open-top Group 6 car returned with a new engine, borrowed from Porsche's still-born IndyCar project, two years later. Singer, of course, was at the helm of the project.

Le Mans '81 wasn't quite the try-out for the unit that many believe. The decision to build the 956 Group C car for 1982 wasn't made until after the victory in the 24 Hours with Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell. That means the most successful racing prototype of all time was designed and built in less then eight months!

"We already had the draft regulations and we started doing some sketches in July, but we did not begin to design the car properly until August 1,” recalls Singer. "That was when we got the go-ahead because, in those days, that was when the financial year began at Porsche."

The first Porsche with a monocoque chassis and the first with ground-effect aerodynamics would hit the ground on March 22, 1982. Three months later, it recorded a one-two-three victory at Le Mans.

The design with which Singer's name is most associated would have one last hurrah at Le Mans an amazing 12 years — and further five Le Mans victories — later. It came courtesy of some out-of-the-box thinking on Singer's part.

Porsche research and development boss Horst Marchart erroneously believed that the McLaren F1 would be on the grid at Le Mans '94 — he was actually one year ahead of himself — and reckoned an upgrade of the 911-based car Porsche had run the previous year wouldn't be up to the job of beating the carbonfibre supercar.

"Like members of the board do, he said, 'Okay, I give you one week to up with a new idea'," says Singer, who recalls scepticism about his plan. He remembers Max Welti, then Porsche's motorsport boss, calling it "Mr Singer's funny idea".

The bizarre scheme revolved around the road-going version of the 962 that Porsche privateer Jochen Dauer had shown at the Frankfurt motor show in September 1993.

"I had the idea that if we can make a 962 for the road and homologate it," recalls Singer, "then we could work backwards and make it a race car."

Le Mans victory number 15 for Porsche was the result. There was more blue-sky thinking as the GT era continued. The 911 GT1 was a reaction to the McLaren, which made a victorious arrival at Le Mans in 1995.

"We did what we always wanted to do with the 935 — turn the engine around," recalls Singer. "It was obvious that if we were going to beat the McLaren we needed a mid-engined car."

Singer also had a hand in the car that beat the 911 GT1 and its evo version at Le Mans in 1996 and '97. The WSC95 was built by Tom Walkinshaw Racing's US arm, but Singer was involved in the development of the project before it was shelved in 1995 and again when the cars were brought out of mothballs to be run by Joest Racing.

The final Singer Porsche, not counting the unraced LMP2000, was the carbon-chassis 911 GT1-98. It fittingly won Le Mans in the 50th anniversary year of the company against one of the strongest fields ever assembled for the great event.

It was victory 16 for Porsche and Norbert Singer.

Photography courtesy of motorsport images.