Touring Car Rewind: South brought an array of retro tin-top machinery to Brands Hatch last weekend. Amid the nostalgia, 2013 British Touring Car champion Andrew Jordan in a Super Touring BMW and Ford Capri-mounted current BTCC star Charles Rainford were among those to catch the eye.
Star Car: BMW 318i E36
Few Super Touring cars were as successful – or numerous – in period as BMW’s E36-model 3 Series, which became the car to beat as the two-litre formula gathered momentum from 1992.
But, while rooted in the same base model, the pace of development meant that later examples had very little in common with cars from earlier in the decade.
Hence, while factory driver Steve Soper was on his way to winning the 1995 Japanese Touring Car Championship, Team Advan’s entry for 1985 champion Kazuo Mogi was less successful. Mogi was driving a model that was first in service with Greyhound Motorsport in Italy two years earlier – before aerodynamic appendages were incorporated into the formula.
The update package Advan’s car ran could not overcome its inherent limitations and Mogi failed to record a top-10 finish all year. The car was retired to a Yokohama Advan dealership display and not seen on track again – until last weekend.
Having acquired the car 18 months ago, Irishman Michael Cullen tasked Dutch BMW specialist Mats van den Brand with recommissioning it. Seven hundred hours’ work later, it was ready to run in the Super Tourers races at Brands. Cullen was unavailable so 2013 BTCC champion Andrew Jordan was brought in to share with van den Brand.
“It’s a really, really nice car to drive,” said Jordan. “It’s a lot slower in terms of horsepower [than a modern car], but a lot lighter as well. This is much more up on its toes.”
Jordan qualified third, beaten only by later General Motors group machinery, and looked set to finish in the same position in Saturday’s race. However, a broken crank sensor trigger wheel intervened and, with no spares of the 30-year-old part, van den Brand was denied an opportunity to race on Sunday.
Star Car: Toyota Starlet
Waterman’s Starlet is a replica of Polley’s 1987 Hot Rods title winner
Photo by: Gary Hawkins
Jason Waterman turned more than a few heads with his striking replica of the Toyota Starlet that took National Hot Rod legend George Polley to world title glory in 1987.
Waterman grew up as a regular spectator of the short oval action at Wimbledon Stadium as well as making the annual pilgrimage to Ipswich for the World Final where the likes of Polley, Barry Lee and Mick ‘Duffy’ Collard were the leading lights.
But it was when he saw Polley’s spaceframe Starlet, bedecked in its owner’s signature colours, at the discipline’s Brentwood Show that it really made a lasting impression.
“I was 15 at the time, and it was like, ‘That is just stunning,’” Waterman recalled. Nearly 40 years later, now based on the Isle of Wight, he decided to build a recreation to race in the Intermarque Silhouettes series, the regulations for which are based on National Hot Rods.
“I own a garage business so I taught myself to weld, I taught myself to paint,” explained Waterman, who previously raced a similar-spec Peugeot 206. “I built the spaceframe, which I’d never done before, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
Panels were supplied by Simon Smith’s Autoxross concern, while the Vauxhall ‘Red Top’ engine – de rigueur in Intermarque – is the only significant departure from the original Polley machine.
Waterman debuted the car a couple of months ago, and this was its second competitive outing – having also taken centre stage on parade at last month’s National Hot Rod World Final.
Without the modern aerodynamic devices of his rivals, he still qualified ninth among the 15-car field and improved to seventh in Saturday’s race before head-gasket failure sidelined him from Sunday.
“I just wanted people to see it again,” he reflected, “and the reaction from everybody… they absolutely love it.”
Star Car: Ford Sierra XR4Ti
The XR4Ti was the forerunner to the famous Sierra Cosworths and RS500s but Rouse’s original car is believed to no longer exist
Photo by: Gary Hawkins
Multiple Classic Touring Car champion Nigel Garrett gave a first track outing to his faithful recreation of Andy Rouse’s 1985 BTCC title-winning machine – a car that is believed to no longer exist.
Before the RS Cosworth and homologation-special RS500 editions of Ford’s Sierra came on stream in 1987, Rouse – then a three-time BTCC champion – developed a Group A version of the XR4i sport model. Or rather, he used the more potent North American 2.3-litre turbocharged model known across the Atlantic as the Merkur XR4Ti.
Rouse promptly took it to a record fourth crown and then defended his Class A honours the following year, albeit slipping to third in the overall standings as Chris Hodgetts’ smaller-engined Toyota Corolla triumphed.
“It was the development platform for the Cossie,” explained Garrett. “He [Rouse] developed the chassis, the suspension, then they took everything off and put it on the Cossie the next year.”
Seeking to recreate a missing piece of history, Garrett has incorporated the Merkur’s differences in bodywork from a Sierra – such as the larger bumper required by American regulations – as well as the racing modifications.
“It’s full Group A throughout,” he added. “Getrag 265 gearbox, air jacks, fully strengthened, seem-weld cage, as it would have been in the period, double-skinning around the footwells and all that sort of stuff.”
Each day’s high-speed demonstrations were the car’s first runs on track so a minor issue with over-heating was not unexpected.
“This could be a race car,” Garrett added, “but I’m retired from that. I’m happy to do the demo stuff.”
And the motivation? “Someone needed to build it. I think there’s too many Cossies out there, basically!”
Best Battling: Pre-’66 Touring Cars
The Imps of Prebble (l) and Ibbotson spent much of race two side by side in thrilling tussle
Photo by: Gary Hawkins
A busy field of Pre-’66 Touring Cars put on two entertaining contests. Piers Grange scored a double in his mighty Ford Falcon but was pushed by a pair of Lotus Cortinas, while the Hillman Imps of Gary Prebble and James Ibbotson thrilled.
Saturday’s race was cut short by a couple of cars going off, but the following day’s rematch went the distance.
The twin-cam Lotuses of Ian Thompson and Simon Gusterson offered a near-perfect combination of power and handling to give Grange a thorough workout around the 1.2-mile Indy circuit, particularly at the tight Druids hairpin. But Grange’s V8 provided just enough grunt to hold them off, assisted by the intra-Cortina battle. Gusterson squeezed past Thompson at Graham Hill Bend on lap two of 16 but Thompson responded with the fastest lap before diving ahead at Paddock Hill Bend on the eighth tour.
By that time, Jeff Smith’s Mini was on their tail, completing the spectrum of large to little among the leading quartet. The former BTCC star had charged from the back of the grid after going straight on at Druids the day before, but could climb no further.
Behind Mark Burnett’s Mini and points leader Jake Swann’s Ford Anglia, the one-litre Imps of Prebble and Ibbotson were enjoying a battle for the ages. Time and again reigning champion Ibbotson edged ahead via the slipstream, only to be outbraked by his rival who eventually got the nod by just 0.03 seconds. “Proper close racing,” a beaming Prebble succinctly summarised.
Vectras share Super Tourers glory
There was a win apiece for Whelan’s Opel example and Hughes’ Vauxhall version
Photo by: Gary Hawkins
Cars from the BTCC’s high watermark of the 1990s remain the biggest draw for many on the spectator banks despite their expense and sophistication limiting entries.
A trio of Super Production cars and a later Super 2000-spec BMW helped boost Brands’ grid into double figures. But, while a larger field remains an aspiration, those present still put on a show with victories split between the Vectras of Jason Hughes (Vauxhall) and debutant Robert Whelan (Opel).
Renowned engine builder Whelan was entrusted with the ex-Mike Briggs 1996 RML-built car his father John – suffering with a bad back – had raced at last summer’s Super Touring Power 3 event.
On his first appearance at the Kent venue since Formula Ford outings nearly two decades ago, Whelan pipped Hughes’s later Vauxhall to pole position by a tenth of a second.
Whelan led the opening laps of Saturday’s race before a trip through the Paddock Hill gravel damaged the Opel’s splitter and let Hughes in for victory. With third-placed Andrew Jordan’s BMW 318i suffering a mechanical breakage at two-thirds distance, Colin Sowter claimed third in his 1998 ex-Paul Radisich Peugeot 406.
Whelan made amends on Sunday, taking only a lap before diving past Hughes into Paddock Hill Bend. After a delay when Byron Aldous’s Super Production Honda Civic crashed on Hailwood Hill, Hughes struggled to get restarted and dropped to the rear of the field. He climbed back to third but was just unable to dislodge Sowter from second, with Whelan a further 4s up the road.
Star Performer: Rainford and his Capri
BTCC racer Rainford was again great to watch as he starred in Group 1 Capri
Photo by: Gary Hawkins
What does a BTCC driver do on a weekend off? Race an old touring car of course.
West Surrey Racing’s Charles Rainford was back behind the wheel of the Ric Wood-built Ford Capri he had taken to victory at the previous three years’ Super Touring Power events.
Run by his father Shaun’s CCK Historic squad, the Group 1-spec car was at a disadvantage compared to the Group 1.5 machinery permitted in Pre-’83 Touring Cars. But Rainford won the category in Saturday’s contest before being edged by champion Jonathan Corker’s Datsun 510 on Sunday, having also enjoyed scrapping with Pre-’93 models that shared the same grid.
Grange’s Ford Falcon (l) bagged two wins over the Touring Car Rewind weekend
Photo by: Gary Hawkins
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– The Autosport.com Team
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