Back in the ’50s, marketing was a whole lot simpler. The emerging world of saloon car racing looked to be an ideal way for manufacturers to showcase the prowess of their latest tin-tops, and on Boxing Day in 1957, the British Saloon Car Championship arrived to fill the void for a national series. Jack Sears was crowned as the first champion in 1958, and though many might not remember the Austin A105 Westminster he drove for its racing pedigree, the motto “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” was well on its way to becoming a thing.
Indeed, it didn’t take long before manufacturers were building performance variants of their mainstream cars to homologate them for racing. Over the years, British Saloon Car Championship became a phenomenon, being renamed as the British Touring Car Championship in 1987 and inspiring the production of a host of memorable halo models for the road. Here, we’re celebrating iconic favourites born out of the championship’s first four decades.
MINI COOPER
For its first 32 years, the championship was run with a mix of classes, divided according to engine capacity. That meant a smaller car could end up a title winner – like the Mini Cooper in the hands of Rhodesian John Love in 1962.
As alien as it may seem nowadays, the Mini was never designed to be sporty. Creator Alec Issigonis intended
