THE SHOWROOM SENSATION
It was a revolution that arrived quietly and gradually changed the face of British saloon car racing. The arrival of Production Saloons as a race category, in March 1972, was met with a blend of scorn, scepticism, and general disinterest.
Many dyed-in-the-wool enthusiasts thought that the prospect of racing cars in showroom trim was a dreadful move and said it would never catch on. This was a generation that had grown up on a diet of Group 5 touring cars and Special Saloons, and standard cars on track was simply never going to appeal. How wrong they would be.
As motorsport headed into the 1970s, across club and national racing there was a pretty standard staple diet that revolved around Special Saloons, Modsports, Formula Ford and Clubmans. The idea of taking a car out of a showroom and racing it seemed almost unthinkable to the hardcore.
It all really started at Thruxton the previous May,
