Special Saloon/Super Saloon Register

allenbrown · 25 Jan 2009, 13:57 (Ref:2378765)

Anyone up for this? When did Special Saloons really start and when did Super Saloons arrive? At what connects this to the Donington GTs of the 1980s?

I just found this result but I'm wondering if it's really necessary to go back further:

Thruxton 30 Apr 1972 (Motoring News 4 May 1972 p27)

Overall:
1. Brian Cutting - 3.0 Ford Escort-Martin V8
2. Peter Dodds - 3.9 Jaguar Mk 2
Also
John Turner - 1.0 Anglia-BRM (John McDonald's)

allenbrown · 25 Jan 2009, 14:07 (Ref:2378769)

Snetterton (MN 11 May 1972 p7)

1. Teddy Savory in Mick Hill's Tricentrol Lotus Motor Group Boss Capri
DNS John Pope ex-Marshall Viva

Steve Wilkinson · 25 Jan 2009, 14:42 (Ref:2378794)

Quote:

Originally Posted by allenbrown

Anyone up for this? When did Special Saloons really start and when did Super Saloons arrive? At what connects this to the Donington GTs of the 1980s?

I just found this result but I'm wondering if it's really necessary to go back further:

Thruxton 30 Apr 1972 (Motoring News 4 May 1972 p27)

I would think so as the first Special Saloon car race I saw was on the 4th April 1969 at Oulton Park!

Alan Brown · 27 Jan 2009, 06:57 (Ref:2380249)

Depends on what you want to include. It could be space-framed cars with replica/silhouette bodies (eg Maguires) and racing car/sports racing car-based versions (eg "Chimp). This would exclude the big-engined cars of the 1960s eg Alan Brodie Viva-Chevy, Brian Bolton Cortina Ford 4.7, Brian Tarrant A40-Chevy, various Capri V8s etc. When Thruxton re-opened in 1968 it ran Special Saloon races, usually in 2 groups with 2 classes in each. What about Doc Merfield's Cortina?

**John Turner** · 29 Jan 2009, 07:52 (Ref:2381915)

Quite a bit of discussion about these cars in the History forum, where you may get more joy, Allen. As Alan says, there is a notable difference between the pre space-framed cars and those later cars. Do you want me to move it, or leave it here?

You probably know, but just for the record, I'm not the John Turner mentioned.

allenbrown · 29 Jan 2009, 15:58 (Ref:2382185)

I've seen the long and fascinating thread in the history forum but my thought here was to start putting together a structured list of the cars that were built. The problem is not knowing where to start.

Maybe somebody would be willing to go through the Autosport end-of-season reviews and give us a paragraph or two on each season so we can better judge where to start.

The Group 2 or Group 4 cars will be covered by the touring car historians such as Frank but the truly "special" saloons don't fit into the FIA's Groups 1-9 and I'm not sure that anybody is looking at them.

**John Turner** · 30 Jan 2009, 10:17 (Ref:2382600)

Allen, I think it's an excellent idea. I remember the pre spaceframe cars with great affection.

Maybe, I'll work through the threads and do a list, for starters, and also from memory.

I'd also like to see a similar task undertaken for the early modsports cars - they were great fun to watch too. Did they not then join the saloons and come morph into ths spaceframe era.

driftwood · 4 Feb 2009, 19:16 (Ref:2388423)

a great can of worms here girls!
i think the special saloons really started in the 66 season because there where Group 5 saloon races for cars that where homologated ( technically we would say these Gp5 cars where more akin to Gp2 spec cars) and had go faster engines or tuning kits on them
the cars then filtered down into club racers hands with other mods like wider wheels flared arches lighter panels and then people like Terry Sanger fitted big engines in Cortina circa 67/8 that really kicked off the hybrid saloon cars that we can call SPECIAL saloons
there where 2 or 3 sets of regs over the many years that covered special saloon then we had the Super saloon regs circa 73-75
Donington GT racing was an amalgamation of special saloons and the withering Modsports race cars with its own "open" set of rules

Modsports had very specific rules on tuning and mods allowed in relation to a cars homologation
later there was Thundersaloons and Modified saloon car championships

there are 3 threads currently running
the only way to deal with this thread is to proceed 1 year at a time or it willjump around like mad as it has done already on these other threads where you can glean a lot of info already All I will say good luck to you on this one (I was there in period and the cars changed hands rapidly) im off and I will leave you to it

**John Turner** · 5 Feb 2009, 07:56 (Ref:2388747)

Drifty, I'm working on a couple of the threads with the intention of splitting into 1) pre spaceframe cars and 2) spaceframe cars. I agree it could get messy if we separated them into the different rules that governed them, so why do we just not identify the 'special' saloons with whatever history we can get?

Steve Wilkinson · 5 Feb 2009, 09:46 (Ref:2388903)

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Turner

Drifty, I'm working on a couple of the threads with the intention of splitting into 1) pre spaceframe cars and 2) spaceframe cars. I agree it could get messy if we separated them into the different rules that governed them, so why do we just not identify the 'special' saloons with whatever history we can get?

John, definately a

Special Saloons as I see it fall into five types:

1) Re-engined cars without major surgery to the shell.
2) Semi spaceframe where parts of the shell were replaced with a structure to carry major components etc.
3) Fully Spaceframed - usually with a glassfibre body
4) Monocoque construction - usually converted S2000 etc.
5) Central seat - usually converted F2 cars or similar.

I am sure others will increase the number of 'categories'.

driftwood · 5 Feb 2009, 10:25 (Ref:2388941)

i prefer it being done in years
start at 66/67 and work through the cars
however there is a plethora of Minis Imps anglias escorts in the sub 1300 cc class that will be hard to determine who built a car sold to another and who bought ex Fraser or Broadspeed Gp 2/5 cars and modified them for special saloon club racing

If you try running 1 tread with 5 sub divisons we will have 5

plus 3 lots of

lots of

and it could all get very

allenbrown · 5 Feb 2009, 12:08 (Ref:2389017)

I like Drifty's idea. Shall we try doing it year by year and see how we get on?

Steve Wilkinson · 5 Feb 2009, 13:25 (Ref:2389080)

Quote:

Originally Posted by allenbrown

I like Drifty's idea. Shall we try doing it year by year and see how we get on?

For once I think Drifty may have had a good idea! Now all we need to do is get someone to teach him how to type!

driftwood · 5 Feb 2009, 13:55 (Ref:2389095)

wotyermean by that?

**John Turner** · 7 Feb 2009, 11:16 (Ref:2390409)

Well, I had been working on posts from several threads but if you want to do it year by year, that's frankly beyond me, so I think that I'll let you guys get on with it!