The European Touring Car Championship was an international

touring car racing Touring car racing is a motorsport road racing competition with heavily modified road-going cars. It has both similarities to and significant differences from stock car racing, which is popular in the United States. While the cars do not move ...

series organised by the

FIA FIA is the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (English: International Automobile Federation), the world's governing body for all forms of motor sport where four or more wheels are used. Fia or FIA may also refer to: People * Fia Backst ...

. 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 In 2005 it was superseded by the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 Touring Car Championship The FIA World Touring Car Championship was an international touring car championship promoted by Eurosport Events and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It has had several different incarnations, including a sin ...

, and replaced by the

European Touring Car Cup The FIA European Touring Car Cup was an annual touring car racing event, which had been held at various locations across Europe from 2005 to 2017. Unlike in previous years where it was a one-off event, in 2010 the series was a three round event. ...

between 2005 and 2017 when became also defunct.

History

European Touring Car Challenge / Championship (1963–1988)

The European Touring Car Challenge, as it was originally known,Part 1: 1963-1967 The early years
Retrieved from homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jong on 10 August 2009 was created in 1963 by Willy Stenger at the behest of the FIA. Cars competed under FIA Group 2 Improved Touring Car regulations which allowed a variety of

touring cars Touring car racing is a motorsport road racing competition with heavily modified road-going cars. It has both similarities to and significant differences from stock car racing, which is popular in the United States. While the cars do not mo ...

of different sizes and engine displacements to race together, from the small

Fiat 600 The Fiat 600 ( it, Seicento, ) is a rear-engine, water-cooled city car, manufactured and marketed by Fiat Automobiles, Fiat from 1955 to 1969 — offered in two-door fastback sedan and four-door Multipla mini MPV body styles. Measuring only ...

and

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 ...

to the large

Jaguar Mark 2 The Jaguar Mark 2 is a mid-sized luxury sports saloon built from late 1959 to 1967 by Jaguar in Coventry, England. The previous Jaguar 2.4 Litre and 3.4 Litre models made between 1955 and 1959 are identified as Mark 1 Jaguars.Eric Dymock, Th ...

and Mercedes-Benz 300SE In 1963 races and

hillclimbing Hillclimbing, also known as hill climbing, speed hillclimbing, or speed hill climbing, is a branch of motorsport in which drivers compete against the clock to complete an uphill course. It is one of the oldest forms of motorsport, since the fir ...

events at

Nürburgring The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Formula One, Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around t ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

and even in the Népliget (People's Park) in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

counted towards the ETCC, which was won by German

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 ...

and his Jaguar. In 1968, the regulations were changed to allow Group 5 cars to participate,Part 2: 1968-1969 Group 5 years
Retrieved from homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jong on 10 August 2009 however these highly modified Special Touring Cars would only be eligible for two years. In 1970 the series name was changed from European Touring Car Challenge to European Touring Car Championship. Group 2 again became the principle category although Group 2 regulations were now much more liberal in nature than the old Group 2. Following the

1973 oil crisis The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had supp ...

the next two seasons had few entrants. It was only in 1977 that the situation was normalised with the return of factory teams. Rules allowed Group 2 and Group 1B "National" cars to compete together, with BMW 3.0 Coupé CSL and Capri RS remaining the most competitive entries. In 1982, the FIA replaced Groups 1 and 2 with

Group N In relation to international motorsport governed by the FIA, Group N refers to regulations providing 'standard' large scale series production vehicles for competition. They are limited in terms of modifications permitted to the standard specific ...

and

Group A Group A is a set of motorsport regulations administered by the FIA covering production derived vehicles intended for competition, usually in touring car racing and rallying. In contrast to the short-lived Group B and Group C, Group A vehicles w ...

. The first one was mainly ignored by the ETCC entrants, all cars going the Group A route. BMW and Alfa Romeo prepared regular touring cars for the championship, but it was the big-engined

Tom Walkinshaw Racing Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) was a motor racing team and engineering firm founded in 1976, in Kidlington, near Oxford, England, by touring car racer Tom Walkinshaw. The company initially handled privateer work before entering works touring ca ...

prepared

Jaguar XJS The Jaguar XJ-S (later called XJS) is a luxury grand tourer manufactured and marketed by British car manufacturer Jaguar Cars from 1975 to 1996, in coupé, fixed-profile and full convertible bodystyles. There were three distinct iterations, w ...

and Rover 3500 Vitesse that would be more competitive in the years to come, fighting against the BMW 635 CSi, the turbocharged

Volvo 240T The Volvo 200 Series (or 240 and 260 Series) is a range of mid-size cars produced by Swedish company Volvo Cars from 1974 until 1993, with more than 2.8 million total units sold worldwide. Like the Volvo 140 Series (1966 to 1974), from which it ...

and

Ford Sierra Cosworth The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth is a high-performance version of the Ford Sierra that was built by Ford Europe from 1986 to 1992. It was the result of a Ford Motorsport project with the purpose of producing an outright winner for Group A racing in ...

as well as (from 1986) Australian manufacturer

Holden Holden, formerly known as General Motors-Holden, was an Australian subsidiary company of General Motors. It was an Australian automobile manufacturer, importer, and exporter which sold cars under its own marque in Australia. In its last thre ...

and its V8 powered

Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ''Kommodore'' * Air commodore ...

. The championship was cancelled after the end of the 1988 season, due to escalating costs (a one-off

in 1987 also exacerbated the problem). By then, the FIA had allowed "Evolution" models to be homologated, and it was special cars such as the BMW M3 Evo and

Ford Sierra RS500 The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth is a high-performance version of the Ford Sierra that was built by Ford Europe from 1986 to 1992. It was the result of a Ford Motorsport project with the purpose of producing an outright winner for Group A racing in ...

that dominated the grids and results. The

Macau Grand Prix The Macau Grand Prix ( pt, Grande Prémio de Macau; ) is a motorsport road race for automobiles and motorcycles held annually in Macau. It is the only street circuit racing event in which both cars and motorcycles participate, and one of onl ...

Guia Race The WTCR Race of Macau, previously Guia Race of Macau and WTCC Guia Race of Macau, is an international touring car race, and currently a round of the World Touring Car Cup. It is held on the temporary 6.2 km Guia Circuit on the streets of Mac ...

, the

Spa 24 Hours The 24 Hours of Spa is an Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance racing event for cars held annually since 1924 at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot, Belgium. It is currently sponsored by TotalEnergies. History The Spa 24 Hours was ...

and the 24 Hours Nürburgring were the only international touring car races during those years. With the success and popularity of Supertouring in many national championships, the FIA organised the one-round Super Touring World Cup for these cars, between 1993 and 1995. In 1996, the FIA promoted the DTM, which already had races outside Germany in its calendar, to International Touringcar Championship (ITC), but once more escalating costs ended the series after two seasons.

European Touring Car Championship (2000–2004)

Gabriele Tarquini - Alfa Romeo 156 GTA (40453437380)

In 2000, the

Italian Superturismo Championship The Italian Superturismo Championship (Campionato Italiano Superturismo) is Italy's national Auto racing, motorsport series for Touring car racing, touring cars. It was established in 1987 and its drivers' title has been held by such notable drive ...

was promoted to Euro STC. The series was made up mostly of Italian drivers from the former Italian Campeonato Superturismo and teams plus some other coming from the German

Super Tourenwagen Cup The Super Tourenwagen Cup, or German Supertouring Championship, was a touring car racing series held between 1994 and 1999 in Germany. The championship was established when BMW and Audi both left the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM) in 19 ...

. In the first season of Euro STC, six rounds were in Italy while the other four were in Austria, (A1 Ring), Hungary (Hungaroring), Czech Republic (Brno) and Slovenia (Ljubljana). The series was very balanced with four drivers winning five races apiece (Giovanardi, Kox, Morbidelli and Colciago) with four manufacturers (Alfa Romeo, Honda, BMW, Audi). At the end of the year Giovanardi was able to win the title beating Kox in last round. In 2001, this series became the FIA 2001 European Super Touring Championship, with an extra class for Super Production cars alongside the main

Super Touring Super Touring, Class 2 or Class II was a motor racing Touring Cars category defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for national touring car racing in 1993. It was based on the "2 litre Touring Car Formula" created ...

class. As the former year also this one was very fought and attractive riveting thanks to the battle between Alfa drivers' Giovanardi and Larini and Honda driver Tarquini. Tarquini won 9 of 20 races, compared with the 3 victories each by Giovanardi and Larini, but lost the title to Giovanardi due to several retirements that he had during the season. In 2002, due to high costs FIA decided to let Super Touring make way for the new class Super 2000 and named the new series FIA ETCC, using Super 2000 rules. This new category provoked much interest and saw participation from

Alfa Romeo 156 GTA The Alfa Romeo 156 (Type 932) is a compact executive car produced by the Italian automobile manufacturer Alfa Romeo. It was introduced at the 1997 Frankfurt Motor Show as the replacement for the Alfa Romeo 155. The 156 received a positive recep ...

and BMW 320i,

Volvo S60 The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...

and SEAT Toledo Cupra. Alfa Romeo won the first two championships with

Fabrizio Giovanardi Fabrizio Giovanardi (born 14 December 1966 in Sassuolo) is an Italian racing driver. During his career he has won ten touring car titles, including European and British crowns making him the most successful touring car driver worldwide. He has ...

and

Gabriele Tarquini Gabriele Tarquini (born 2 March 1962) is an Italian racing driver. He participated in 78 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on May 3, 1987. He scored a single championship point, and holds the record for the most failed attempts to qualify. He h ...

while in the last season the title was won by

Andy Priaulx Andrew Graham Priaulx, MBE ( born 8 August 1974) is a British professional racing driver from Guernsey. In 2019 he raced for Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK in the FIA World Endurance Championship, and Cyan Racing Lynk & Co in the FIA World Tou ...

and his BMW. The series became popular with the public due to the intense competition and

Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through Warner Bros. Discovery Sports#Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe properties, its international sports unit, it operates two ...

live broadcasts. For this reason in 2005, the ETCC was promoted to WTCC status.

European Touring Car Cup (2005–2017)

The European Touring Car title was given from 2005 until 2009 to a once a year

, with the best representatives from national championships running to Super 2000, Super Production and Super 1600 regulations in the Baltic States, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Starting in 2010 the ETCC will once again become a multi event racing series. Four events of two races each are set to be held in Portugal, Italy, Austria and Germany at the

Circuito Vasco Sameiro The Circuito de Velocidade Vasco Sameiro (also known as Circuit of Braga) is a racing circuit located north of Braga, Portugal at Palmeira. It was constructed in 1990http://www.touringcartimes.com/news.php?id=3039 Braga, Portugal to host ETC C ...

in Braga, the Autodromo Bonara in Franciacorta, the

Salzburgring The Salzburgring is a motorsport race track located in Plainfeld, east of Salzburg. Key Facts Track Length Bends 15 Straights ...

in Salzburg and the

Motorsport Arena Oschersleben The Motorsport Arena Oschersleben is a long race track with a width of and elevation changes of . The circuit is located in Oschersleben, Börde where is approximately from Magdeburg), Germany. Its fairly flat contours create a smooth, fast ci ...

in Oschersleben, respectively. However, on 25 Mar 2010, fiawtcc.com reported that the event in Germany was cancelled to avoid clashes with the German touring car series.THE FIA ETCC STARTS IN BRAGA THIS WEEKEND
Retrieved from fiawtcc.com on 27 March 2010

Champions

ETCC (1963–1988)

ETCC (2000–2004)

Statistics winners

European Super Touring Cup

European Super Touring Championship

European Touring Car Championship

References

External links

* *
European Touring Car Championship history

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20091004084506/http://www.fia.com/sport/regulations/common/appendix_j/article262.html FIA STC Article 262 {{Super Touring championships