THE SALOONS THAT THUNDERED TO SHORT-LIVED SUCCESS

British club racing lost one of its stalwarts when Pete Stevens died earlier this year. He was best known for his years in Thundersaloons, winning four titles, and in particular for the mighty Chevrolet-powered Vauxhall Carlton in which he claimed his last two crowns.

It’s 35 years since the birth of the series, which featured some of the most powerful saloon cars ever to race in this country. Like so many successful categories of the era, it was dreamed up by Brands Hatch supremo John Webb and, as the moniker suggests, drew inspiration from the Thundersports series that had been running since 1983.

While Special Saloons, and the Super Saloons offshoot, had captured the imaginations of racers and fans alike in the 1970s, grid sizes were waning in the 1980s.

“It was all becoming very much spaceframes with a plastic body,” remembers Tony Davies, polesitter for the first Thundersaloon race in his Blydenstein-tuned twin cam Vauxhall Firenza. “With a steel-bodied saloon car, you just didn’t stand a chance. So when I saw the regulations come