It’s a truism to say that race cars have a pretty hard time, but it’s very much the nature of their existence. Sure, they have a charmed life from the outset, with bountiful trinkets bestowed upon them in the form of the latest upgrades, technological gizmos and artful speed-oriented addenda, but the trade-off is that they get the very life thrashed from them at every given opportunity. And worse even than that, they tend to have a fairly short shelf-life. How long does a race car last – one season, two, half-a-dozen? It depends on the formula, the level and the budget of course, but they do often get callously cast aside when a faster alternative usurps them. Look at – to pluck a formula from the ether – the Supertouring-era BTCC racers of the 1990s. OK, a handful
