Does the BTCC need manufacturers?
The British Touring Car Championship is thriving with 30-plus-car grids, but the days of the 1990s when there were as many as nine manufacturer teams on the grid are still longed-for. SCOTT MITCHELL investigates how important works teams really are
BTCC60
Celebrating 60 years of the BTCC As it marks its diamond jubilee in 2018, read the best of Britain’s most popular motor racing championship
Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.
That's now an archaic phrase in motorsport circles, although car manufacturers must have thought it still made sense in the 1990s when they flocked to the British Touring Car Championship. British, European and wider-world marques justified exceptional expense with the popularity and reach of the BTCC's Super Touring era.
The manufacturers needed the BTCC then, or at least they thought they did. And did the championship need them? Massively. In fact, such was the dependence during the Super Touring era, and so long was the rehabilitation process thereafter as series bosses sought to hack costs and tighten regulations, that it would have long been inconceivable that the BTCC would ever not need them.
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