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Top Gear's tribute to BTCC - Compilation of Clips about BTCC

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Uploaded by on Dec 17, 2008

British Touring Car Championship

Category: Touring cars
Country or region: United Kingdom
Inaugural season: 1958
Drivers: 26 (2008)
Teams: 14 (2008)
Constructors: 6 (2008)
Drivers' champion: Fabrizio Giovanardi (Italy)
Teams' champion: VX Racing (UK)

The British Touring Car Championship is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom. The Championship was established in 1958 as the British Saloon Car Championship and has run to various rules over the years "production cars", then FIA Group 1 or 2 in the late 1960s and 1970s, and then Group A in the 1980s, when in 1987, the series took on its current name. (A lower-key Group N series for production cars ran for most of the 1990s).

The championship was initially run with a mix of classes, divided according to engine capacity, racing simultaneously. This often meant that a driver who chose the right class could win the overall championship without any chance of overall race wins, thereby devaluing the title for the spectators for example, in the 1980s Chris Hodgetts won two overall titles in a small Toyota Corolla prepared by Hughes Of Beaconsfield, at that time a Mercedes-Benz/Toyota main dealer when most of the race wins were going to much larger cars; and while the Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500s were playing at the front of the field, Frank Sytner took a title in a Class B BMW M3 and John Cleland's first title was won in a small Class C Vauxhall Astra.

After the domination (and expense) of the Ford Sierra Cosworth in the late 1980s, the BTCC was the first to introduce a 2.0 L formula, in 1990, which later became the template for the Supertouring class that exploded throughout Europe. The BTCC continued to race with Supertouring until 2000 and for 2001 adopted its own BTC Touring rules. However the Super 2000 rules have now been observed for the overall championship since the 2007 season. The 2000s have seen cheaper cars than the later Supertouring era, with fewer factory teams and fewer international drivers.

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Top Comments

  • I bet the guy in the mini went straight to the pub

  • I'd pay some serious money to get all the races from the 90s on DVD or Blu-ray.

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All Comments (170)

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  • Anybody know the song when the American cars come in, 1:40 ?

  • @mrbogdan441 I'll bet he's already been.

  • @MrRW26 No, Honda Civic 2012-NGTC-Pirtek+Dynamics

    Skoda Octavia-NGTC-TH Motorsport

    Vauxhall Insignia-NGTC-Thorney Motorsport

    VW Golf-NGTC-AMD

    such is, and the old civic is s2000-ngtc engine

  • news. no chevys this year, they withdrawn from the btcc

  • @SomeRandomInhabitant AC/DC - Back in Black

  • confirmed news. MG are joining. with jason plato and andy neate

  • these are the latest cars in the BTCC. VW Golf (S2000), Toyota Avensis (NGTC), NEW Honda Civic coupe (which is done by Honda themselfs (NGTC)), the older civic (S2000), Seat leon (S2000), Vauxhall Vetra (S2000) and THIS YEARS INSIGNIA (NGTC), Proton Gen-2 (NGTC), Ford focus ((S2000) although i heard they may be racing the WTCC this year), Chevvy Cruze (S2000), and Skoda Octavia vRS (NGTC)

    I have heard rumours that MG will join the BTCC.

    NGTC = Next Generation Touring Car

    S2000 = Super 2000

  • song at 5:18 please?

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