Production saloons, supersaloons, modified saloons &c in context?

It is now a full year since Gerry Marshall died and, prompted by articles in Motor Sport and Octane, it has got me thinking about the various saloon car championships of that era.

There seem in retrospect to have been an absolute plethora with various titles, sponsors and so on and it is difficult for someone who did not live through it to get a handle on them.

How were they viewed in period? Were they seen as the ultimate non-single-seater championships in Britain, even higher regard than the touring car championship, or were they a bit of a dead-end sideshow? Were they more NASCAR than ASCAR? How were they viewed outside the UK and were there equivalents? Was there one title that was more prestigious than any other at the time?

I have fond memories of saloon car racing in the 1970's especially the hybid cars an Anglia with a 3.8 Jaguar engine a Capri with a GT40 one, the Daf 33 with a Rover V8 the Beetle Chevrolet V8, VW Variant with a DFV then all those glorious MK1 Escorts from Alan Mann, Broadspeed, Dave Brodie, John Bloomfield, Big & Baby Bertha, and many many more technically innovative home constructed cars, fascinating and spectacular to watch.
We didn't know it at the time ....it was a golden era. Much missed, with some imaginative regulations a club could easily bring back the special builders.

I think the 'British Saloon Car Championship' was, in theory at least, the most prestigious. I got into it in about 74-75, when it was run to G1 regs, and in 4 classes. Below this were the various Production Saloon series, for cars, that like G1, were supposedly fairly close to road-spec.

Then there were the Special Saloon series, which were for modified cars of various ilk. The more modified became the Superloons, which have been much discussed on here and the other place recently. AS I recall though, saloon series generally, didn't have the prestige they seem to today. Certainly they didn't get anywhere near as much coverage in AS and MN as F5000, FAt, and F3.

As Richard says, the 70s must have been the best era ever for UK National/Club racing, we were spoilt at the time !

Originally posted by Mallory Dan
I think the 'British Saloon Car Championship' was, in theory at least, the most prestigious. I got into it in about 74-75, when it was run to G1 regs, and in 4 classes. Below this were the various Production Saloon series, for cars, that like G1, were supposedly fairly close to road-spec.

Then there were the Special Saloon series, which were for modified cars of various ilk. The more modified became the Superloons, which have been much discussed on here and the other place recently. AS I recall though, saloon series generally, didn't have the prestige they seem to today. Certainly they didn't get anywhere near as much coverage in AS and MN as F5000, FAt, and F3.

As Richard says, the 70s must have been the best era ever for UK National/Club racing, we were spoilt at the time !

I think Dan's first paragraph is about right, but to my mind this particular championship lost something when it switched to Gp 1 regs. It may still in theory have been the premier saloon car championship but the spectacle was nothing like as good as what went before - Hillman Hunters were no substitute for the likes of Frank Gardner and Yogi Muir in Camaros. The best saloon car racing at this time was really the Super Saloon series, The Boss Capris, the Daf-Rover, all that kind of thing. And of course there were so many regional championships that weren't massively important in the overall scheme of things, but gave both drivers and spectators some superb racing.

But was saloon car racing in any form really the ultimate non-single seater formula in Britain at the time? I'd probably put the 2-litre sportscar championship at the top of the list - all those lovely Lolas and Chevrons battling it out with quality drivers at the wheel.

Originally posted by ian senior


I think Dan's first paragraph is about right, but to my mind this particular championship lost something when it switched to Gp 1 regs. It may still in theory have been the premier saloon car championship but the spectacle was nothing like as good as what went before - Hillman Hunters were no substitute for the likes of Frank Gardner and Yogi Muir in Camaros.

But was saloon car racing in any form really the ultimate non-single seater formula in Britain at the time? I'd probably put the 2-litre sportscar championship at the top of the list - all those lovely Lolas and Chevrons battling it out with quality drivers at the wheel.

The Group 2 Touring Car races with Gardner, Muir, Fitzpatrick, Brodie, Matthews and others were absolutely astounding in my opinion. They get my vote, without hesitation.

There were never enough 2-litre sportscars races as far as I was concerned!

Slightly off at a tangent, I always enjoyed ModSports. Jon Fletcher was one helluva driver.

Originally posted by MCS



Slightly off at a tangent, I always enjoyed ModSports. Jon Fletcher was one helluva driver.

100% agreement. That guy was so quick it was unbelieveable. His Elan may have been a scruffy old thing but it really flew.

The BSCC/BTCC was a reasonably big deal but nothing else was other than a normal club race programme. Some of the formulae that were introduced were a result of changes in the BTCC. Modsaloons for example was introduced as a lower level category for the Group 2 cars displaced when the BTCC went Group 1 (or rather Group One and a half).
The legacy can be surprising. Modsaloons was carefully designed to cater for Group 2 not something wilder. The suspension regs deliberately excluded Group 4 Escorts. When the Speed event world belatedly sought regs to replace the ludicrous "supersaloon" plastic bodied sports racers that were the only national speed saloon category, it combined Modsaloon and Prodsports regs to form Modprod - and one or two of the detailed, restrictive regs that resulted are widely ignored to this day (as you could probably see at Gurston Down tomorrow).

Check out the supporting race at major meetings such as the British GP, International Trophy, Race of Champions, Brands 1000km, TT (before it became a saloon race itself) etc. The race for saloons was nearly always a BTCC round.
By that definition, as RS2000 says, the rest were just club races

Originally posted by David McKinney
Check out the supporting race at major meetings such as the British GP, International Trophy, Race of Champions, Brands 1000km, TT (before it became a saloon race itself) etc. The race for saloons was nearly always a BTCC round.
By that definition, as RS2000 says, the rest were just club races

But didn't the Super Saloons support the British GP one year (1975?).

Possibly
I did say "nearly always"

Going back to a previous era the racing I enjoyed most, probably because I was usually involved in some capacity, was Marque Racing. I am in fact trying to find results and lap times for the Veedol Trophy series. Any ideas anybody?