1963 European Touring Car Challenge

The 1963 European Touring Car Challenge was the inaugural season of what would become the European Touring Car Championship. On 16 June 1963, the first race was staged on the classic Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit. After a hillclimb event at Mont Ventoux, the challenge headed to England for two races, as classes were divided between events at Brands Hatch and Mallory Park. Round five was hosted by the brand new Zolder circuit, then the challenge crossed the border into the Netherlands and on to Zandvoort. Another hillclimb at the Timmelsjoch for round seven, and the final would be held behind the Iron Curtain, in Hungary.

Although the challenge was a success, the point-scoring systems used weren't. The first challenge left us with five drivers sharing the top position, with , being declared the champion. This was because there were up to nine classes, all having their own separate race winners. This point system would remain right up to 1988 when the ETCC stopped.

The challenge had a lot of competitive cars, unfortunately, not many of them were in the same class. On the other hand, speed differences were not that large, so a Mini was sometimes able to outpace many bigger cars.

European Touring Car Challenge[]

Champion:

Runner Up:

^[1][2]

Results[]

Date	Round	Circuit/Hillclimb	Classes	Winning driver(s)	Winning team	Winning car
16/06	Rd. 1	Nürburgring	Class 1-9		Peter Lindner Racing	Jaguar 3.8 Litre Mark 2
23/06	Rd. 2	Mont Ventoux	Class 2-9		Driver	Lancia Flavia Coupé
06/07	Rd. 3	Brands Hatch	Class 4-9	Roy Salvadori Denny Hulme	Tommy Atkins	Jaguar 3.8 Litre Mark 2
13/07	Rd. 4	Mallory Park	Class 2-3		Driver	Saab 96 Sport
25/08	Rd. 5	Zolder	Class 2-3	Gösta Karlsson	Gösta Karlsson	Saab 96 Sport
			Class 4-5	Rob Slotemaker	Downton Engineering	Austin Mini Cooper S
			Class 6-9			Jaguar 3.8 Litre Mark 2
01/09	Rd. 6	Zandvoort	Class 1-3	Gösta Karlsson	Driver	Saab 96 Sport
			Class 4-6	Rob Slotemaker	Downton Engineering	Austin Mini Cooper S
			Class 7-9		John Sparrow	Jaguar 3.8 Litre Mark 2
15/09	Rd. 7	Timmelsjoch	Class 2-9			Jaguar 3.8 Litre Mark 2
22/09	Rd. 8	Népliget Park, Budapest	Class 2-9	Carlo Facetti	HF Squadra Corse	Lancia Flaminia
Source:[1][2]

Table[]

Place	Driver	Car	Total
1		Jaguar 3.8 Litre Mark 2	60
2		DKW F12	60
3	Hubert Hahne	BMW 700	60
4	Rob Slotemaker	Austin Mini Cooper S BMW 700	60
5	Tom Trana	Volvo 122S	60
6	Gösta Karlsson	Saab 96 Sport	58
7		Saab 96 Sport	56
8=		Lancia Flaminia	54
		Lancia Flaminia
	Jochen Neerpasch	Volvo 122S
		BMW 700
		Austin Mini Cooper S Morris Mini 850
13		Alfa Romeo Giulia TI	52
14		Morris Mini Cooper S DKW Junior de Luxe Morris Mini 850	47
15		NSU Sport Prinz	46
16		Austin Mini Cooper	43
17		Vauxhall VX4/90	41
18		BMW 700	40
etc.
Source:[1]

The first five drivers finished level on points; the overall result of the Nürburgring was decisive... another contemporary report mentions "the ones with the most victories, Nöcker, Mantzel and Hahne were classified in the order of who had the biggest winner margin over second in class".

References[]