Norbert Singer (born 16 November 1939) is aGermanautomotiveengineer. He has played a key role in every one ofPorsche’s 16 overall race victories between 1970 and 1998 at the24 Hours of Le Mans.[1][2]
Singer was born inEger (Cheb), which is today part of theCzech Republic, but was part of theGermanSudetenland, in 1939.[3]
Singer joined the racing department of thePorsche company inStuttgart in March 1970.[3] The young engineer from theTechnical University of Munich was soon given the job of cooling the gearboxes of the powerful 917 racers which had broken down in 1969.[3][1] His first task was successful and thePorsche 917 dominated the event in 1970 as well as in 1971, the first year Singer attended the great race.[2]
Singer was involved in the 911 Carrera RSR and RSR Turbo 2.1 from 1972 to 1974[3] Singer was then given the task of developing thePorsche 911 road car for racing,[1] and in doing so he created eventually what is by far the most successful customer race car that Porsche ever produced: thePorsche 935 which won at the1979 24 Hours of Le Mans outright, a remarkable feat for a modified 15-year-old road car design.[2]
Following this, Singer designed the bodywork of thePorsche 956 and962Group C cars[4] which won 724 Hours of Le Mans titles[1] and three Manufacturers’ and two teams’ World Championships between 1982 and 1986[3] In the 1990s, Singer engineered thePorsche WSC open sports car which claimed two victories in1996 and 1997.
He oversaw thePorsche 911 GT1 project which finally put the 911's engine into the middle, something that he'd wanted to do since the 935.[5] The 911 GT1 achievedPorsche's16th victory atLe Mans.[5][4]
Singer subsequently retired from Porsche's racing department in 2004[3] and took up a role with theFIA monitoring performance inendurance racing.[1] He continued to support customer teams at races until 2010,[3] and lectures at university about engineering.[4]
Singer was a consultant on the Dynamics and Lightweighting Study,[6] a modified version of the964 which was produced bySinger Vehicle Design, a company whose name is partly an homage to his work on 911s.[7][6]
| Volkswagen Group marques & companies | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cars |
| ||||||
| Tractors | |||||||
| Motorsport |
| ||||||
| Engines and technologies | |||||||
| People |
| ||||||
| See also | |||||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
