'The gearbox in the 917 needs to survive the 24 Hours of Le Mans without overheating. But the
new cooling system can't create any additional drag. Okay off you go.' That was the first task
given to newly-qualified aerospace and automotive engineer Norbert Singer when he joined
Porsche's racing development programme in the spring of 1970.As we now know the gearbox was
reliable Porsche won the race and Norbert Singer stayed loyal to the German carmaker for
decades to come. To celebrate Singer's 80th birthday Sportfahrer Verlag in Düren brings you
##BOOK TITLE##. What started out as a plan to update an older book has through many
conversations between Singer and author Wilfried Müller grown into a comprehensive and
detailed autobiography.Across 16 chapters and more than 350 pages Singer describes the greatest
era of Porsche racing to date from his own unique perspective that of a visionary race
engineer and aerodynamicist and cunning tactician and interpreter of rules. From the 917 to
the 911 Carrera RSR to the world championship-winning 935 to the lightest (735 kilograms) and
fastest (366 km h) 911 in history. Singer also details the background of the three-time Le
Mans-winning Porsche 936.Like the Carrera Turbo RSR and the 935 Singer was the project manager
for the ground-breaking Porsche 956. The car wrote Porsche into the motor racing history books.
Singer successfully took the ground effect aerodynamic concept used in Formula 1 and applied it
to two-seater sportscars. At the time it was pinnacle of Singer's passionate search for
downforce. Drivers like Jacky Ickx Stefan Bellof Derek Bell Jochen Mass and Hans-Joachim
Stuck achieved unthinkable cornering speeds in these 800-horsepower cars collecting five world
championships along the way.In the mid-1980s Porsche ventured into unknown - and as it turned
out very difficult - territory with its single-seater programme in the American CART series.
Singer details the tumultuous saga from the inside. A more enjoyable recollection is the artful
transformation of a racing prototype into a Gran Turismo car the Porsche 962 LM GT1 which
conquered Le Mans in 1994. Continuing the GT1 theme Singer led the development of the first
mid-engine 911 in 1996 one of those cars then winning at Le Mans in 1998. It was the 16th
triumph for Porsche at the world's most famous endurance race. Singer was involved in all of
them as an engineer and most of them as a tactician and strategist on the pit wall. His
detailed recollections of those 24-hour marathons make up much of the book from his escape
from the CEO to an improvised air lift for parts.At the end of the 1990s the man with the
reading glasses always sitting low on his nose designed the groundbreaking aerodynamics on the
LMP2000 Spyder - only for the car to be resigned to secrecy in a hangar. The famous Carrera GT
super sports car also had Singer's touch in the wind tunnel. As Porsche boss Wendelin Wiedeking
said at the time Singer will come up with something. After retiring Singer continued to
support customer teams at race tracks until 2010 before passing his knowledge onto the next
generation of engineers with a stint as a university lecturer.Forty years of racing with
Porsche as told by Norbert Singer and written by Wilfried Müller who is known to motorsport
enthusiasts for his Peter Falk and Walter Röhrl biographies.This book is the first work by the
publisher done in cooperation with the Porsche Museum. The Edition Porsche Museum has its own
Porsche part number (MAP09029920) and can obtained through the manufacturer's distribution
channels including any Porsche dealer or the museum store.
