Giant killing performances in Euro Touring Cars

[chunterer]

A long time touring car fan - i'm thinking of some memorable championships, not just in Britain but also abroad.

In the old days a small class car could win a title outright by outscoring bigger class cars. This was sometimes down to number of competitiors in a given class or simply because a small class champion was excellent. Ohter times, it was too fraught in the top classes and not so in the smaller ones.

Richard Longmans Mini, Bernard Unett's Avenger and Win Percy's Toyota corolla titles spring to mind in Britain. But what about European series and other domestic series?

I'm trying to recall the name of the guy's who won the ETC in the 60's and 70's too. I know the Cortina's, Bee Ems and Alfas were usually to the fore but didn't a small class Mini win the '64 title run by Ken Tyrrell?

I can't recall or have found who the driver was? :confused:

[mcurtis26]

I think it was John Love, the Rhodesian who nearly won the 1967 South African Gp in a privately entered Cooper, but finished second after a late splash and dash refuel

[KA]

Warwick Banks is the name you're trying to remember- he won the 64 ETCC in a Tyrrell-entered Mini 970'S'. This included one outright win at Mallory, (where there was a race just for the small class cars), and a piece of 'proper' giant-killing at Mont-Ventoux (the ETCC included hillclimbs back then as well....)- 6th overall, behind a Lotus Cortina, a 3-litre Mercedes, a couple of 1800cc Lancias and a 1275 Cooper S (he also picked up 2nd in the 1300 class in a 1275S as well...)

The Mini won the ETC twice- the second was John Handley in 1968.

The British series has been won quite a few times from the smaller classes- the more recent examples that come to mind are John Cleland in the Astra in 89, and Chris Hodgetts in a 1600cc Corolla in the mid-80's

[D-Type]

The ETC points also depended on the number of starters in the class.
Once in Yugoslavia (I think) the Mini Cooper class was one short of the number needed to gain maximum points. One of the team mechanics had just acquired his competition licence. So they slapped some numbers on the team's hired Fiat runabout and ran it as a late entry.
Tyrell never missed a trick!

[chunterer]

Cheers, guys, i figured it must've been either Rhodes, Banks or Handley?

Warwick Banks eh, KA? superb stuff so was it him who beat the John Whitmore Cortina into second or was that another year? Did he win th title and get second in the 1275 in the same year?!

Forgot about Hodgetts, yes two in a row wasn't it?

[mcurtis26]

Oh, just remmebered, Love drove in the BTCC, not ETCC for Tyrrell. There was a feature on Rhodes in last week's autosport

[Jesper OH]

Skoda won the 1981 European manufactures title with the 130RS Coupé.

Jesper O. Hansen

[glyn parham]

One good example of giant killing that very nearly succeeded was the Brands Hatch 6 hour race of 1969.
The Broadspeed Escort GT finished second to the race winning Porsche 911 (which was in a little bit of trouble IIRC)and beat several larger engined cars to boot.
The Broadspeed Escorts (and the Anglias before them) were all capable of giving cars in the next class up a tough time and regularly beat them, in fact top ten finishes were the norm and top six results not unusual.
Glyn

[racer69]

We had a similiar class-based scoring system in the ATCC over here for many years.

Christine Gibson nearly won the 1975 Australian Touring Car Championship in a lower class Alfa Romeo, but lost out to the outright class Holden Dealer Team Torana of Colin Bond.

[Bob Riebe]

1970 Trans-Am at Donnybrooke in Minnesota.
Milt Minter driving a 1969 private Camaro beat two-car teams of Ford, Dodge, Plymouth, AMC and the four new cars from Chevrolet by out racing all except George Follmer whom he beat by getting his front fenders farther into the last turn on the last lap quicker than George did.(It is a banked 110 degree turn.)
Physics did the rest as Follmer did not spin but slid wide and Minter beat Follmer by less than a car length.
Bob

[gfm]

I think these count.
I drove for Tom Walkinshaw for a couple of seasons, and there are two giant-killings of his that come to mind.
As a driver, he and Pierre Deudonnier (?) won outright a difficult wet Spa 24 hours in an RX7 ahead of europe's best big-cars class, by going flat chat throughout, in the early eighties. Heroic.
And the second was a race that I went to witness on an F1 Rickman Kawasaki at the old Nurburgring. Tom and his works Jaguars stuffed to might of BMW led by Hans Stuck on their home turf. Was it a six-hour/1000ks? Not exactly giant killing but certainly a giant slayed!

[chunterer]

Thankyou gfm!

Would those TWR years be when you pedalled an Grp 1 RX7 by any chance?!

I recall the Mazda in either TWR group 1 or group 2 spec was particularly adept at slaying bigger engined cars!

Didn't the Group 2 car win the TT outright in 1981? If not it was surely up there.

[chunterer]

Thankyou gfm!

Would those TWR years be when you pedalled an Grp 1 RX7 by any chance?!

I recall the Mazda in either TWR group 1 or group 2 spec was particularly adept at slaying bigger engined cars!

Didn't the Group 2 car win the TT outright in 1981? If not it was surely up there.

[Beejay17]

1966 Trans Am at Bryar Park, New Hampshire.

Allan Moffat in a second hand Lotus Cortina won a Trans Am round outright, beating a bunch of V8s including Charlie Rainville in a Barracuda, Bob Tullius in a Dodge Dart and Bob Johnson in a Mustang.

[gfm]

Hi chunterer, yes - I rode shotgun for Win Percy to take the TC title in Tom's RX7s, plus a few Spa 24 Hours too. Win wanted to get in amongst the Spice Capris at the front but they were pretty fleet by that time.
Yes, Tom won the TT in that very quick Nickerson Gp 2 RX7.

[chunterer]

Had a feeling that was you gfm! It was around the time that i started watching racing and the Grp 1 stuff was brilliant.
It's such a shame to hear about Win's misfortune recently.
Think you also posted on my favourite races thread, about Porsche GT - guess that would be the Blue Coral GT2 and GT1s?!
That aside, i've noticed there's a lot of retro touring car stuff in Ingear Magazine and i've heard lots more to come, if you're interested sir!

On more general note: Demon giant killing at Silverstone March 1985.
Steve Soper qualified ex works Metro Turbo on front row for Trimoco round and took overall lead briefly, before spinning off at Copse! A certain Mr Sytner was gob smacked i recall!