1997 Vauxhall Vectra 'Super Touring' - ex-works Cleland/Warwick BTCC car - totally original, restored, and ready to run

CHASSIS NUMBER: V97-002

Super Touring (also known as Class 2) was a category of Touring Car racing introduced in 1991, designed to give Touring Cars a new injection of life and relevance. Almost immediately, Super Touring conquered the international motor sport scene, spreading across Europe, USA, Australasia, and Asia.

It was the era that brought us some of the most iconic tin-top battles in history, with rivalries that Touring Car racing had never seen… and still hasn’t! It was the class that bought us the legendary Soper/Cleland Silverstone clash in 1992 and the bonkers TWR-built Volvo 850 Estate, and within just a few short years, manufacturers were employing championship-winning Formula 1 Teams to build and develop their cars…and budgets were hitting over £10m! It really was the golden age of Touring Car racing, where fans could truly relate to the “slammed” but recognisable shapes on track… the purest form of “win on Sunday, sell on Monday”.

Huge live audiences visited the races, and even bigger numbers watched at home. BTCC was a BBC Grandstand highlight, with commentary by Murray Walker, and the drivers were household names. Super Touring put some rock ‘n’ roll back into Touring Cars and the BTCC in particular was a truly international championship, staged in the UK.

Super Touring burned as bright as the sun for nearly 10 years, but it was a victim of its own success. With huge interest, came huge pressure to win, and the manufacturers outspent themselves into oblivion. Multi-million-pound driver salaries, and double-figure-million budgets soon meant the whole superstar Super Touring era imploded. But it left behind some of the greatest cars, stories, characters, and memories. It was everything Touring Car racing should be – cars that closely resemble the showroom model, steel shells, works teams, hard-nut drivers not scared of door-banging (or punch-ups), road-based engines, fabulous colourful liveries, all of which played out with the heady smell of 1990s excess in the air. Perfection.

The Vauxhall we are extremely excited to bring to market was built for Vauxhall’s works team by Triple Eight Engineering during the 1997 season to replace the 1996 RML cars. Chassis V97-002 would see service from both double BTCC champion John Cleland and ex-Formula 1 driver and Le Mans winner Derek Warwick. It raced in period in the UK for the last time at the season-closing Tourist Trophy at Donington Park in October 1997, Cleland at the wheel. There were two 1997 cars built for the Vauxhall works team, each rumoured to cost well north of £500,000 in 1997 money. You can soon see where the money went too, with detailing and development that was absolutely of late-1990s Formula 1 standard. Power came from a tough Swindon-built 300+bhp 2-litre Vauxhall 4-cylinder fed through an X-trac 6-speed gearbox. 

Chassis V97-002 is one of the true reference cars of the period. Completely and utterly original but restored by one of the great Super Touring experts. This was a restoration like no other, spanning nearly 20 years. The quality and finish are unlike any running Super Tourer today, and the mechanical components have only run for one short systems check.

As the market’s interest in the 1990s grows, these factory Super Touring cars have to be the next place to look. And now the newly revamped Motor Racing Legends are providing track time each day of the Donington Historic in May for these incredible Super Tourers, there is a place to play at the top level of Historic Motorsport.

The car comes with running equipment including air-jack bottle and lance, and several sets of spare wheels. And the seller can assist in the running of the car at Donington Historic this May.