On the day after the ELMS race at Paul Ricard, DSC was delighted to be invited by ORECA to tour its new 8000 m2 HQ, situated almost literally just over the ‘back fence’ on the Signes Technoparc.
The ORECA ‘Technocenter, which took two years to complete, with much of the work taking place during the pandemic, allowed the French motorsport giant to introduce more efficient production flows. It now benefits from advanced engineering processes, centralised parts storage and distribution and, not least, a significant expansion in the opportunity to attract customer programmes.
The new building houses all of ORECA’s engineering and R&D functions, as well as the Design Office, which now accommodates the customer Hypercar/GTP project teams for Alpine, Acura, and Genesis. These teams were previously located in ORECA’s previous facility, situated across the corporate car park, and were off-limits for this visit. Other confidential programmes are also situated there, strictly behind closed doors!
The company still maintains its facility at Magny-Cours, which deals with LMP3 powertrain assembly as a core function.
All of that, though, will have to wait for a later paragraph because first, we’ll take a moment to wallow in one of the major visual impacts of the new facility. The new entrance is sublime. A generous, light-filled showroom area displays a collection of cars that have helped form ORECA’s now half-century of history.
With Oreca 07 chassis #100 still on display at the Paul Ricard circuit (where it graces the Circuit Reception area during the ELMS weekend), there was one space in the display, but the cars still there made for a colourful and nostalgic sight.
The previous generation of LMP2 is represented by a spotless 03R, while the partnership with Acura, now in the GTP era, is celebrated with an achingly pretty MSR Acura ARX05, built on an 07 chassis.
Three generations of LMP1 meanwhile see examples of the Oreca 01 AIM, a Toyota TS030 (a programme which saw technical and logistical support throughout from Oreca) and the Rebellion R13-based Alpine A480.
Oh, and not forgetting a car that saw ORECA burst into the spotlight on the racetracks of the world, a Chrysler Viper GTS-R. ORECA built many of the cars, supported European customer operations (the majority of the 57 GTSRs built were based in Europe) and operated the European-based factory team that took race wins galore.
The Viper was succeeded in the company’s GT1 programme by the Saleen 07R, ORECA taking charge of the evolution of the last version of the Ford-engined beast that had been developed initially by RML in the UK.
Also in the welcome area were, predictably, a large number of significant trophies from sportscar racing, touring cars, single seaters, rally, ice racing, and more, reflecting the HUGE number of different programmes engineered, designed, built and supported by Hugues de Chaunac’s outfit.
Particularly impressive was the Wall of Fame, featuring an array of world-class talent that have had racing relationships with the company – take a look and see how many you can identify.
Onwards into the engineering areas, and two themes were immediately obvious:
Pride in what has been and is being achieved. Trophies adorn pretty much every working area and bespoke artwork celebrates the major triumphs.
There’s also…. Calm! Despite a massive array of machining, assembly and other tasks being undertaken in an array of specialist workshops, machine rooms, sub-assembly and design areas, the core building is almost totally silent. It’s an unusually calming environment for a business that deals in challenging deadlines and pinpoint accuracy of assembly and quality control.
The facilities include state-of-the-art CNC machine rooms, autoclaves, electrical and electronic workshops and carbon shops – plus a so-called ‘Torture room’, part of an enviable testing and quality control complex that includes, for instance, applying 1,000 kg on a spoiler to test rigidity!
The core of the design concept for the building is a 110-metre-long central ‘street’. It’s a full 6 metres wide with welfare and catering areas to allow workers to mix and relax, with glass windows/walls allowing visibility of pretty much every part of the production and assembly processes. The whole building has been designed to cutting-edge environmental standards with energy and water saving at its core.
At one end of the facility are the two major assembly areas, one currently dedicated to prototype build, with the ORECA 07 still the staple product, though any required LMDh assembly is also done here.
07 chassis #140 was observed to be complete with plenty of additional orders set to see the 2017-regs car complete the current rules cycle with aplomb. Every 07 requires 286 hours of work by a team of 3 mechanics with a full quality control testing regime and a track shakedown. Paul Ricard is very handily placed for that, as part of the package.
Across the central walkway from that shop is an area dedicated to a programme of which the company founder is particularly proud.
ORECA succeeded in winning the business to assemble the Ferrari 296 GT3 from the start of the programme with a five-year contract, and is responsible too for the worldwide on-event support for the cars with dedicated vehicles and staff at all major events.
The GT3 cars are built in batches of six per month, with three of those in build during DSC’s visit bound for Japanese customers.
Each car takes five days to assemble, including the disassembly of power units from the Ferrari factory to remove the hybrid drive that is standard on the road cars.
Three cars are delivered every two weeks to Maranello for testing and customer delivery and whilst Ferrari are famously secretive about the numbers of competition cars they build, if you assume that ORECA is assembling c.70 cars a year, with the first cars delivered to customers at the start of 2023 the maths is not too complicated. Regardless, the 296 GT3, with an Evo version imminent, has been a sales smash hit!
On an upper floor is one of the secrets of ORECA’s success in customer racing, a truly impressive parts storage and despatch system with a generous team of dedicated staff and simply everything available ‘off the shelf’ ( stock levels are valued well into eight figures) from screws, bolts, washers and fasteners through to major components.
All of that means that the travelling support trucks for LMP and GT3 are kept fully stocked, plus there is an ability to get pretty much anything, anywhere it might be required, very quickly.
So what of the future for one of the most successful names in sportscar racing?
On the Hypercar and GTP front, there’s a new car to come with the Genesis Magma Racing GMR001 set to start testing in the coming weeks. Demand for the ORECA 07 LMP2 shows no sign, just yet, of calming down before the next generation of LMP2 is defined.
Hugues de Chaunac told the DSC editor clearly that ORECA plans to tender for the chassis contract once again, with the company keen to display its abilities on that front to potential future factory customers. And, with the Ferrari GT3 order books full for the foreseeable future, it looks likely that ORECA’s proud workforce will be well occupied for some time to come!
