Touring Car Legends: PH Meets
PH chats with the heroes of British touring cars ahead of a new TV series
Tommy Sopwith won the first race in 1957
Sopwith's father told him to give up motor racing, so in 1961 he took up powerboating instead. He turns eighty this year but clearly hasn't lost his passion for speed. The Mercedes CLS63 AMG in his garage boasts the same number plate as the Jag in which he won at Brands. He's the kind of octogenarian I want to be.
The inaugural championship in 1958 was won by 'Gentleman' Jack Sears in a shirt and tie. "We were more formal back then," he explains. "I was in a habit of nearly always wearing a tie. It never occurred to me to take it off. I just used to tuck it in my shirt." He finished the season tied on points with Sopwith but won a hastily arranged shootout in a Riley. The footage of that shootout at a soaking wet Brands Hatch has been beautifully preserved and is one of my highlights of the series.
Jack Sears took the inaugural title in 1958
The gentlemen of the 1960s gave place to the players of the 1970s and the professionals of the 1980s. At the same time, the all-conquering Cortinas gave place to the Capris which gave place to Ford RS500s and the BMW E30 M3s. As someone whose passion for cars was ignited by watching the likes of Andy Rouse and Tim Harvey going head-to-head in RS500s at Donington Park, interviewing the stars of the period could hardly be called work. The younger members of the office couldn't quite understand my excitement as John Cleland came to visit.
Jim Clark leads the pack...
The BTCC was now on mainstream TV with commentary from Murray Walker. Visiting Murray's house to interview him for the show was an absolute treat. His office is a den of motorsport memorabilia and he has a Jaguar F1 nosecone doubling as an umbrella holder by the front door. Walker pops up in every episode, even managing to describe Cleland as, "a sort of Scottish cockney sparrow," which is surely a new Murrayism.
In 1992 Cleland's title-deciding crash with Steve Soper was headline news and twenty years on, we've been able to offer fresh insight into what really happened by interviewing all the key protagonists. To this day, Cleland believes, "the man's an animal."
SD1s and Capris? Must be the 70s
The third episode of the show describes the end of the Super Touring era and the personal battles that defined the noughties. Matt Neal and Jason Plato both talk openly about their scraps on and off the track. The intensity of their animosity seems a world away from the gentlemanly endeavour of Sopwith and Sears.
Filming Touring Car Legends has been a real privilege. There's some awesome archive footage but it's the characters that really make it. I hope you enjoy it.
Touring Car Legends debuts on ITV4 at 8pm on February 5th, with episodes 2 and 3 following on successive weeks at the same time. The Twitter hashtag is #touringcarlegends.
Watch the preview video here
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
[Images: LAT]
then follow it up with complete season re-runs of the 90s BTCC please.
Youtube has a lot of the races though which are worth watching. People gibber on about having Rose Tinted specs when talking about the Supertouring era. Not a chance, watching the racing even now its such a great spectacle. Shame what we have now is pretty poor.
The good years, just check out the crowds at Brands in '95
Personally, I don't like them, but I guess I'm in a minority!!
Kim
however, having been there and watched some of those great 60s and 70s races, and followed it intently, you should get one small fact right.
You said: 'Jim Clark was the reigning F1 World Champion when he claimed the 1964 'Touring Car' Championship in a Lotus Cortina before his untimely death at Hockenheim in '68.'
I think you'll find he won the British 'Saloon' Car Championship.
It was not called the British 'Touring' Car Championship until much later... 1987 after classes were restructured.
You also say you have interviewed 'all' the greats - what about Bill McGovern?
He's very much still here and his and (the late great genius engine builder) George Bevan's 3 British 'Saloon' Car Championship titles, all in succession 1970, 1971 and 1972, were unprecedented (still is!) - same car, same driver, same team - and an independent team at that too.
And I never need much excuse to put this photo up.
This one-litre steel-bodied car was timed officially at 136mph down Hangar Straight, lap after lap after lap. No outside help, just an amazing independent team.
This is Bill at Thruxton in 1972, the final year of their Triple win.
I hope he's included. He should be! But I won't be surprised if he's not.
He's very much still here and his and (the late great genius engine builder) George Bevan's 3 British 'Saloon' Car Championship titles, all in succession 1970, 1971 and 1972, were unprecedented (still is!) - same car, same driver, same team - and an independent team at that too.
And I never need much excuse to put this photo up.
This one-litre steel-bodied car was timed officially at 136mph down Hangar Straight, lap after lap after lap. No outside help, just an amazing independent team.
This is Bill at Thruxton in 1972, the final year of their Triple win.
I hope he's included. He should be! But I won't be surprised if he's not.
This is definitely the best thing I will learn today.
however, having been there and watched some of those great 60s and 70s races, and followed it intently, you should get one small fact right.
You said: 'Jim Clark was the reigning F1 World Champion when he claimed the 1964 'Touring Car' Championship in a Lotus Cortina before his untimely death at Hockenheim in '68.'
I think you'll find he won the British 'Saloon' Car Championship.
It was not called the British 'Touring' Car Championship until much later... 1987 after classes were restructured.
You also say you have interviewed 'all' the greats - what about Bill McGovern?
He's very much still here and his and (the late great genius engine builder) George Bevan's 3 British 'Saloon' Car Championship titles, all in succession 1970, 1971 and 1972, were unprecedented (still is!) - same car, same driver, same team - and an independent team at that too.
And I never need much excuse to put this photo up.
This one-litre steel-bodied car was timed officially at 136mph down Hangar Straight, lap after lap after lap. No outside help, just an amazing independent team.
This is Bill at Thruxton in 1972, the final year of their Triple win.
I hope he's included. He should be! But I won't be surprised if he's not.
Nice to get something on here other than boring comments banging on about how good the super touring days were !!!
And nice to see ITV celebrating the history of the BTCC, I always thought there was scant appreciation of where the series came from on the main race coverage days - some footage of racing over the decades would make great filler between races, instead we get Paul O'Neil reading tweets.....
Like McGovern, it was their relaxed poise, dare I say it, almost Jim Clark style.
Oh yeah, I suppose I can add this without being accused of blatant plugging!
It was small facts, I call them omissions, that bugged me so much I started my own publishing company in 1987. Even today if you want a book on this subject I think you can count them on two fingers. One I did and I think Haynes did the other. No other publisher seemed bothered to cover the subject in detail, so I got my author to revise ours back in 2010. It has the above photo of Frank and ...naturally McGovern on the front cover.
And just in case you're pondering my credibility ...Frank Sears did the Foreword!
Seriously, it should be repeated a few times in the next few weeks, and if you can stomach the awful UI, buffering and excessive adverts, it should be on ITV Player too.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff