When the World Endurance Championship introduced Group C regulations for 1982, Robin Hamilton and Victor Gauntlett saw an opportunity to campaign a car carrying the Aston Martin name at events including the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Aston Martin did not own the Nimrod project but provided engine supply and nominal factory support in exchange for the associated promotional value. Eric Broadley of Lola Cars International designed the chassis, and Lola built the monocoque tubs. The engine was derived from the production Aston Martin V8 and V8 Vantage units and refined by Aston Martin Tickford to handle increased power output in racing conditions.
Nimrod built three NRA/C2 chassis for the 1982 season. The works team ran two cars, while the third was sold to Dawnay Racing, a team entered by the then-president of the Aston Martin Owners Club, Viscount Downe. The NRA/C2 was designed to comply with both World Endurance Championship Group C regulations and IMSA's GTP specification.
The team debuted at the 1000 km of Silverstone. Nimrod's own cars encountered mechanical problems and failed to finish, though Viscount Downe's Dawnay Racing entry claimed sixth place. Further problems emerged at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where Nimrod's race ended in an accident. The season's sole outright success came at the 1000 km of Spa, where one Nimrod car finished in eleventh place. Combining the results of the works and privateer entries, Aston Martin nonetheless finished third in the constructors' championship that year.
For 1983, a more developed variant of the NRA/C2 — a B-specification model evolved by Ray Mallock — entered service. Nimrod Racing shifted its focus to the IMSA GT Championship in North America, ceding European representation to EMKA Racing, which had taken over the factory-supported effort in the World Endurance Championship with its own Aston Martin-powered car.
The North American campaign yielded limited returns. Nimrod's best result in IMSA competition was fifth overall and third in the GTP class at the 12 Hours of Sebring. The team struggled to complete races through the remainder of the season before financial difficulties forced a return to Europe.
Back in Europe, Nimrod Racing Automobiles closed due to ongoing financial pressure, bringing the project to an end. A third-generation chassis known as the NRA/C3 had been under development at the time of closure but was never completed.
Following the works team's closure, Nimrod NRA/C2 cars continued to appear in private hands. Dawnay Racing entered two such cars at the 1984 24 Hours of Le Mans, but both were destroyed in a serious accident on the Mulsanne straight during the race.
The Nimrod project occupied an unusual position in 1980s endurance racing — commercially independent but publicly identified with Aston Martin, whose name it carried in class competition against factory-backed Porsche and Jaguar efforts. The arrangement demonstrated the difficulties of sustaining a competitive endurance racing programme on a limited budget with a production-derived engine not originally optimised for long-distance prototype racing. The project's short life nonetheless kept the Aston Martin name visible in endurance racing during the early Group C era and influenced the thinking that eventually led to the fully factory-developed AMR1 programme later in the decade.