The 1963 European Touring Car Challenge was the inaugural season of what would become the

European Touring Car Championship The European Touring Car Championship was an international touring car racing series organised by the FIA. It had two incarnations, the first one between 1963 and 1988, and the second between 2000 and 2004. In 2005 it was superseded by the World T ...

. On 16 June 1963, the first race was staged on the classic Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit. After a hillclimb event at

Mont Ventoux Mont Ventoux (; oc, Ventor, label= Provençal ) is a mountain in the Provence region of southern France, located some northeast of Carpentras, Vaucluse. On the north side, the mountain borders the department of Drôme. At , it is the highest m ...

, the challenge headed to England for two races, as classes were divided between events at

Brands Hatch Brands Hatch is a motor racing circuit in West Kingsdown, Kent, England, United Kingdom. Originally used as a grasstrack motorcycle circuit on farmland, it hosted 12 runnings of the British Grand Prix between 1964 and 1986 and currently host ...

and

Mallory Park Mallory Park is a motor racing circuit situated in the village of Kirkby Mallory, just off the A47, between Leicester and Hinckley, in central England. Originally used for grass-track until 1955, a new, basically oval hard-surfaced course ...

. Round five was hosted by the brand new

Zolder The Circuit Zolder, also known as Circuit Terlamen, is an undulating motorsport race track in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium. History Built in 1963, Zolder hosted the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix on 10 separate occasions in the 1970s and 1980s, a ...

circuit, then the challenge crossed the border into the Netherlands and on to

Zandvoort Zandvoort () is a municipality in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is one of the major beach resorts of the Netherlands; it has a long sandy beach. It is bordered by coastal dunes of Zuid-Kennemerland National Park and the Amsterdam ...

. Another hillclimb at the

Timmelsjoch Timmelsjoch ( it, Passo del Rombo), (elevation ) is a high mountain pass that creates a link through the Ötztal Alps along the border between Austria and Italy. The Timmelsjoch connects the Ötztal valley in the Austrian state of Tyrol to the P ...

for round seven, and the final would be held behind the

Iron Curtain The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its s ...

, in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

. Although the challenge was a success, the point-scoring systems used weren't. The first challenge left us with five drivers sharing the top position, with

Peter Nöcker Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

, being declared the champion. This was because there were up to nine classes, all having their own separate race winners. This point system would remain right up to 1988 when the ETCC stopped. The challenge had a lot of competitive cars, but not many of them were in the same class. On the other hand, speed differences were not that large, so a

Mini The Mini is a small, two-door, four-seat car, developed as ADO15, and produced by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and its successors, from 1959 through 2000. Minus a brief hiatus, original Minis were built for four decades and sold during ...

was sometimes able to outpace many bigger cars.

European Touring Car Challenge

Champion:

Runner Up: Wolf-Dieter Mantzel

Results

Table

The first five drivers finished level on points; the overall result of the Nürburgring was decisive... another contemporary report mentions "''the ones with the most victories, Nöcker, Mantzel and Hahne were classified in the order of who had the biggest winner margin over second in class''".

References

{{European Touring Car years European Touring Car Championship seasons European Touring Car