Touring car racing has usually been seen as the court jester to the serious stuff of single-seaters, but in a passing conversation at the Goodwood Revival someone said to me words to the effect that it was the saloon car race there that made the event—all the rest, including the TT celebration, was just back-up.
Mercedes-Benz’s weapon of choice was its C Class sedan. Photo: Daimler AG
Call them saloon cars, touring cars, production cars, or what you will, the subject is vast and, in Europe, has its roots in the races that were held for production cars accompanying Grand Prix and other international races back in the late 1940s and very early 1950s. Here could be seen the sort of cars that the general public could go out and buy, lurching and screeching their way round circuits with, in many cases, little prior preparation other than the removal of their hubcaps.
