Norma Auto Concept is a French constructor of racing cars. It was founded in 1984 by Norbert Santos and Marc Doucet.

History

Hillclimbing and initial Le Mans entries

Norma was founded by Norbert Santos and Marc Doucet in 1984 and initially designed and built only cars for the French

Hillclimbing Hillclimbing, also known as hill climbing, speed hillclimbing, or speed hill climbing, is a branch of motorsport in which drivers compete against the clock to complete an uphill course. It is one of the oldest forms of motorsport, since the firs ...

championship. After success in the hillclimbing scene, Santos and Doucet decided to build a

Group C Group C was a category of sports car racing introduced by the FIA in 1982 and continuing until 1993, with ''Group A'' for Touring car racing, touring cars and ''Group B'' for Grand tourer, GTs. It was designed to replace both Group 5 (motorspor ...

car, the Norma M6. This car was fitted with an experimental MGN (Moteur

Guy Nègre Motor Development International SA (MDI) is a Luxembourg-French based company designing products in both mobility and energy storage using a compressed air engine. Development history Established by Guy Nègre, the Luxembourg company MDI, with ...

) W12 engine. The Norma M6 was entered in the 1990 24 Hours of Le Mans with drivers Daniel Boccard, Norbert Santos and Noël del Bello. The car failed to qualify and was not entered in any other race. Norma's second attempt at Le Mans came in 1995. The

Buick Buick () is a division (business), division of the Automotive industry in the United States, American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American automobil ...

powered Norma M14 prequalified 23rd overall and did not qualify to race at the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans. The car saw a comeback in 1999 when it was entered in the 1999 24 Hours of Daytona. The Norma qualified 26th overall and did not finish the race due to an

exhaust Exhaust, exhaustive, or exhaustion may refer to: Law * Exhaustion of intellectual property rights, limits to intellectual property rights in patent and copyright law ** Exhaustion doctrine, in patent law ** Exhaustion doctrine under U.S. law, i ...

failure.

Formula Renault

Between 1997 and 1999 Norma Auto Concept entered the

French Formula Renault Championship The Formula Renault 2.0 West European Cup (WEC) was a Formula Renault 2.0 championship that replaced the Championnat de France Formula Renault 2.0 as of 2008,Martini Martini may refer to: * Martini (cocktail), a drink made with gin and vermouth, garnished with an olive or a lemon twist * Martini (vermouth), a brand of vermouth * Martini (surname), an Italian surname * Martini (automobile company), a Swiss auto ...

MK76. Malinconi finished eighth in the final standings achieving two podium finishes. More success in Formula Renault came in 1999 with Stéphane Gautré driving a Martini MK77. Achieving one win and four podium finishes he ended up fourth in the standings. With the introduction of the

spec The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) is a non-profit consortium that establishes and maintains standardized benchmarks and performance evaluation tools for new generations of computing systems. SPEC was founded in 1988 and i ...

Tatuus Tatuus is an Italian chassis manufacturer for a series of formula racing series, being first founded in 1980. The company is known for its association with Renault Sport for its production of the Formula Renault chassis. Company history Tatuu ...

Formula Renault in 2000 Norma ceased their Formula Renault activities.

Racing at Le Mans and Group CN success

PRCCN07 NormaM20F SportsCarChallenge Hockenheim 2010

A more successful prototype came in 2000, the Norma M2000. This car raced in 2000 thru to 2003. The car was solely entered by Sezio Florida Racing Team and saw a best result of 3rd. In 2001 and 2002 the car entered full-time in the

Rolex Sports Car Series The Rolex Sports Car Series was the premier series run by the Grand American Road Racing Association. It was a North American-based sports car series founded in 2000 under the name Grand American Road Racing Championship to replace the failed ...

The team made four attempts to start at the

24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans () is an endurance Sports car racing, sports car race held annually near the city of Le Mans, France. It is widely considered to be one of the world's most prestigious races, and is one of the races—along with the Mon ...

, they succeeded in their last attempt in 2003. They started 36th overall but did not finish due to an engine failure, 8 hours, 39 minutes in the race. For the design of the Norma M2000 Santos and Doucet were joined by Edouard Sézionale who would also accompany them with the design of the

Group CN Group CN is a category of vehicles used in motorsport, introduced by the FIA in 1993 for sports car racing. Group CN cars are mainly used in hillclimbing championships or sports racing series. Group CM is a non-FIA class which is closely rel ...

cars. After their Le Mans experience Norma designed and built Group CN prototypes starting with the Norma M20. Norma produced 30 Norma M20 cars in 2003 and 2004. Norma continues to develop the Norma M20, the current Norma M20 FC is entered in the V de V,

Speed EuroSeries In kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a non-negative scalar quantity. Introduc ...

and other sportsracing series. A Norma has won the V de V Prototype Endurance Challenge in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. Anthony Gandon achieved a second place in the Speed EuroSeries ranking driving a Norma M20 FC in 2012. Another attempt at Le Mans was made in

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

. The

Pegasus Racing Pegasus (; ) is a winged horse in Greek mythology, usually depicted as a white stallion. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa. Pegasus was the brother of Chrysaor, both born from Medusa's blood whe ...

entered a Norma M200P, but it did not finish the race. The following season the car was taken over by Extreme Limite which entered in the

Le Mans Series The European Le Mans Series (abbreviated as ELMS) is a European sports car racing endurance series inspired by the 24 Hours of Le Mans race and organized by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). The European Le Mans Series is similar to the ...

and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2011 and 2012. The best finish for the car was a fifth place at the 6 Hours of Estoril in 2011.

Pikes Peak

In 2014,

Romain Dumas Romain Dumas (born 14 December 1977) is a French racing driver and driver for Glickenhaus in the World Endurance Championship. He first started out in karting and single-seater before becoming an expert driver in endurance racing, GT and sport-p ...

won the

Pikes Peak hill climb The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), also known as The Race to the Clouds, is an annual automobile hillclimb to the summit of Pikes Peak in the U.S. state of Colorado. The track measures and has over 156 turns, climbing ...

in the Norma M20 "RD Limited", developed specifically for the event. Driving in the Unlimited class, Dumas finished in a time of 9:05.801. Dumas won once again two years later with the 2016 specification of M20 RD Limited with the time of 8:51:445.

FIA European Hill Climb Championship

In 2014 Norma entered into FIA European Hill Climb Championship with type Norma M20 FC Zytec (3L naturally-aspirated V8 engine). Italian driver Simone Faggioli (with direct factory support) won the championship for Category 2 (Competition Cars - single seater, sport-prototypes and silhouettes) in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019. Simone Faggioli and Norma created a lot of track records and registered indelibly in the history of this series.

SCCA National Championship Runoffs

Starting in 2014, Jim Devenport drove a Norma M20FC with a Honda K20 2 liter engine to a 3rd-place finish at the Runoffs at Laguna Seca in the class Prototype 1. In 2015, same car and driver finished 2nd at the Daytona Runoffs. In 2016, a new lighter weight M20FC was driven by Jim Devenport to first place at the Runoffs in P1 at Mid-Ohio giving Norma its first Runoffs victory.

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Cars

References

External links

Norma Auto Concept
{{Norma Auto Concept Automotive motorsports and performance companies French racecar constructors Car manufacturers of France Manufacturing companies established in 1984 Formula Renault teams French auto racing teams Auto racing teams established in 1997 Auto racing teams disestablished in 1999