“His lasting claim to fame was that he developed the 911 into a racing car alongside Gerard Larousse,” Cotton went on. “He took it to Paul Ricard and progressively tuned it to make it stiffer. Until that time it had been more of a touring car than a GT car.
“In 1973 the 911 RS and RSR won the
Daytona 24 Hours and Targa Florio. That started a whole new breed of cars for Porsche.”
The 935 and 936 then became the dominant forces at La Sarthe from 1976 to 1980, as well as claiming a whole cabinet of trophies in Europe, America and Japan. Next up were the 956 and 962 Group C cars, which between them achieved phenomenal success by dint of winning the Camel GT Championship, World Sportscar Championship and, most notably of all, the Le Mans 24 Hours on a staggering seven occasions.
“Singer was the chief designer on the 956 model, the first ground-effect car in endurance racing,” Cotton said. “It won Le Mans every year from 1982 to 1985 and then the 962 development won in 1986 and 1987.”
The German’s final Le Mans triumph came in 1998, when Allan McNish, Laurent Aiello and Stephane Ortelli took the chequered flag a lap ahead of the sister Porsche 911 GT1-98 of Jorg Muller, Uwe Alzen and the late, lamented Bob Wollek.
“There was a whole string of successes which were to his credit,” Cotton added. “It was fascinating to trace the development of Weissack and all the people who worked there, what they did and the reasons they did it. What continuously comes across is the very strong teamwork that went on.
“All of the drivers and engineers I spoke to hold Norbert in the very highest esteem. He is a natural leader, not only in designing cars but also in getting the very best out of people. There are some strong and compelling tributes within the book which I think sum Norbert up. He is a very talented engineer and an inspirational character.”
For a chance to win a copy of 24:16, personally signed by both Norbert Singer and fellow Le Mans legend Derek Bell, click here.
