Okay, so this Motor-Vision feature is really just an excuse to show you some racecar honeys that’ll be strutting their sexy stuff through this 2013 racing season, and a few other red-hot racers that we’ve popped in purely to celebrate their pristine pedigree. Tin-top racing fans get ready for photographic perfection.
Let’s kick off this tasty little racecar round up with a few pics of the new, 2013 MSA British Touring Car Championship cars that are set to commence fender-bending battle at the legendary Brands Hatch on the 31st March. The whole paint-swapping season will be covered in depth on ITV4 and ITV4 HD, and with arch rivals Jason Plato (MG) and Matt Neal (Honda) going at it once again, we’re pretty much guaranteed some exciting racing, like no other series on TV. Well, apart from World Touring Car Championship, perhaps.
On the BTCC grid for 2013, and it’s one of the most packed in the series’ history. Plato’s MG in white, flanked by arch rival Honda Civics. And a tasty-looking new Ford Focus at far right
A whole rack of Toyota Avensis racers for the 2013 BTCC season. An Avensis never looked so good!
Gordon Shedden’s Honda Civic Type-R BTCC racer, complete with yummy wide wheel arches
And it’s in WTCC where we’ll see this saucy Seat Leon WTCC racer (below) in action. Seat generally makes a good-looking racecar and their 2013 Seat WTCC is no exception. Modifiers often use touring cars as their inspiration to modify their same-model road cars, and if you turned your road-going Leon into something like this fat, low and mean circuit specialist, I expect you’ll get some serious respect at your local car meet.
It seems that several mainstream manufacturers have had their interest piqued by recent rule changes in touring car racing that sees 1.6-litre turbocharged engines taking over from the traditional 2-litre naturally aspirated motors. Manufacturers want their racecars to reflect their road cars in terms of technology, as well as looks, and with the new era of small-capacity turbo engines rocking a new era of fast-yet-frugal road-going hot hatches, winning races with a turbo engine is a great way to market your road products to us punters. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday, as they say.
Seat Leon WTCC racecar. Surely a special edition road-going version, styled like this racer, would sell like the hottest of hot cakes?!
Now, these next two cars are nostalgics, rather than the latest 2013 race specs, but both have good reason to be in this here celebratory feature. This stunning Porsche 911 will be a big part of the huge (and unmissable) 50-years-of-the-Porsche-911 celebration at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this year. And isn’t she gorgeous?
The 1965 ‘short-wheelbase’ 911 will be racing for the Porsche ‘Project 50’ team at selected ‘Masters Series’ events, as well as larger nostalgic racing events like the Nurburgring Old Timer and the Silverstone Classic. You’ll see our Performance Direct show stand at the Silverstone Classic, so come and say hi.
Built in Germany in September 1965, the ‘Project 50’ car is powered by a rear-mounted, 1,991cc flat-six boxer engine that makes a not-so-racy-sounding 130bhp. It would’ve cost around £3,438 to buy new, and it’s worth substantially more now. And while it’s not packing the power to match our 2013 touring cars, many a touring car driver would dream of a chassis so sublime and balanced to race on.
Finally, to wrap things up like a massive sheet of rather mental wrapping paper, we have this Audi quattro S1 in this wonderfully dramatic fully sideways action shot. Why’s it in? Well, it’s a killer shot of one of the most successful and ground-breaking racecars of all time, and Audi is celebrating the fact that they’ve just built their 5,000,000th quattro equipped car. And that road car sales success is all down to the competitor-smashing success of this iconic rally monster. They don’t make ‘em like the used to!
Enjoy the racing.
By Dan Anslow
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