ITV4, current broadcasters of the British Touring Car Championship in the UK, will air a new three-part documentary series this winter on the history of the series having been commissioned from producers Gaucho Productions.
The documentary, named Touring Car Legends, will take viewers on a trip down memory lane into the history of touring car racing in Britain, mixing archive footage with bespoke interviews with key drivers, team members and motorsport pundits alike to tell the stories of the times from its beginnings in the 1950s to those that make up the BTCC as we watch it today.
John Claridge, Head of Programme Strategy, ITV4, said: “ITV4 has a solid track record of screening exciting sports documentaries and is synonymous with televising touring car racing in the modern era so we’re excited to bring this new series to viewers’ screens. It goes through the archives to show just how exciting ‘tin-top’ racing has been over the last 60 years and I’m delighted Gaucho will bring the stories and highlights to life for us.”
Scheduled for a currently undecided winter date in late-2013, the series will educate viewers on the major eras in the sport, from the early years of Jack Sears and Tommy Sopwith‘s Brands Hatch shoot-out for the maiden title, the major shake-ups of the 1980s including Andy Rouse’s success in the famous Ford Sierra RS500, to the popular Supertouring era of the 1990s before reaching the current NGTC squabbles.
Alistair Weaver, Executive Producer at Gaucho Productions, added: “I fell in love with motorsport watching the likes of Andy Rouse, Steve Soper and John Cleland doing battle in cars that looked a bit like the one Dad drove.
“The British Touring Car Championship has always been about the cars and the characters and with the passage of time we plan to offer fresh insight into what really happened in some of the sport’s most memorable moments. We’re delighted that we are able to bring these stories to life and share them with the dedicated fans of ITV4.”
