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• When Skynet Met NASCAR: DTM’s Class 1 Era [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 14 March 2013

  

  About a month ago, we showed you a video tribute to the golden age of the German Touring Car Championship (DTM). It was a period where modified but still-production based BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes, Audis and others went door handle to door handle in front of an enthusiastic worldwide audience. However, beginning with the 1994 season, series organizers fully implemented the FIA’s Class 1 touring car regulations and, if you ask us, the results were just as magical (but in a different sort of way).

  Unlike the earlier Group A touring cars, the Class 1 models merely looked like their street legal Alfa Romeo 155, Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Opel Calibra counterparts. Underneath, they were pure racing cars with naturally-aspirated 2.5L V6s that revved to well over 12,000 rpm, sequential transmissions and, in the case of the Alfas and Opels, all-wheel drive. And if that wasn’t enough, they were crammed full of cutting edge tech, most of which had, ironically, been banned from Formula 1 with the start of the 1994 season. Gizmos like ABS, traction control, active suspension, four-wheel steering, active aerodynamics and even active ballast became the norm. Naturally, costs exploded, particularly after the series went global in 1996 under the name ITC. Manufacturers lost interest, and the FIA was under pressure to keep it from outshining F1 (much like it had been with the World Sportscar Championship in 1992), so the plug was pulled at the end of ’96. But while this series that was equal parts NASCAR, Can-Am and Formula 1 (with a sprinkling of BattleBots thrown in for good measure) may be gone, it sure as Scheiße ain’t forgotten.

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• The Golden Age of DTM Racing [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 11 February 2013

  

  Some of the most exciting racing (and coolest racecars) on earth in the late 1980s and early 1990s occurred in the DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft, literally German Touring Car Championship). Cars like the original E30-based BMW M3, the Cosworth-massaged 16-valve Mercedes-Benz 190E, and the fat-and-happy Audi V8 Quattro were just some of the tasty tintops that did battle on such storied venues as the Hockenheimring, the Nürburgring (including the mighty Nordschleife), and the AVUS.

  Aptly-named YouTuber DTMEnthusiast captures the go-go spirit of this remarkable era in racing in this fantastic six-minute, one-second production. The soundtrack selection’s lyrics may be unintelligible to the average Amerikaner (The approximate translation of the title and chorus is “Damn Long Time Ago.”), but it’s an absolutely perfect accompaniment to the slow-motion kerb-hopping, powersliding and champagne spraying. If watching this doesn’t make you immediately start trolling eBay, Craigslist and all the rest for a roadgoing BMW, Audi or Mercedes-Benz DTM homologation model to call your own(All three were sold new in the U.S. at one point or another.), consult your doctor immediately, because you might be dead.

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• The Days of Madness: Group B Rally Monsters [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 29 January 2013

  

  The early 1980s was truly the World Rally Championship’s Wild West period, thanks in large part to technical formula in place at the time. The FIA’s Group B regulations required manufacturers to build at least 200 street legal examples of a car for it to be eligible to compete in the WRC. Beyond that (and restrictions on engine size, minimum weight relative to engine size and a few other criteria), it was pretty much “run what ya brung.” And the manufacturers – among them Audi, Ford, Lancia, Peugeot and Renault – brought some truly wild creations packed with features like all-wheel-drive, turbocharged or supercharged (and, in the case of the LanciaDelta S4, both!) mid-mounted engines, and power outputs that, by 1986, topped 600hp.

  Naturally, these gravel-chucking, fire-farting beasts got to be too fast for their own (or anyone else’s) good. A rash of driver and spectator fatalities – culminating with the loss of ace Lancia shoe Henri Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto on the Tour de Corse – prompted the FIA to bring down the axe on Group B (and its would-be-successor, Group S) at the end of the ’86 season. All that was left of this hoary, harrowing chapter in motorsports history were photographs, memories and videotape. YouTube user amjayes2 gathered the last of those three to create this amazing tribute to this amazing era.

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• The Top 10 Cars Named After Race Tracks

  In Lists / By Tom Anderson / 9 August 2012

  

  One of the best ways to add some sizzle to a new model is to name it after a race track. Even if it isn’t an overtly sporty vehicle, bestowing upon it the name of a motorsports venue can at least make it sound less dull than it is. Of course, some vehicles are just so lame that not even the name of a racing circuit can save them. Yes, we’re talking about you, Chrysler Sebring and last generation Pontiac Le Mans.

  But what about the speedway namesake rides at the other end of the scale, i.e. the crème de la crème? We were able to name at least 10 top flight autos that happen to have autodrome monikers. Here, in no particular order, they are.

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• The Top 10 German Sport Sedans of All Time

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 5 December 2011

  

  While out-and-out sports cars are the vanguard of driving fun, they aren’t particularly family-friendly. Two-doors, usually two seats (and in the instances where there are more than two seats, those extra ones are seldom comfortable or acceptable for anyone larger than an infant in a safety seat), low seating positions and trunks that are generally not large enough to house a stroller and a diaper bag (not at the same time, anyway) are a rather hard sell for the family man.

  Luckily, sport sedans are a viable alternative to the traditional sports car, and no nation does sport sedans like Germany. Sure, the Brits, Japanese, Americans and now even the Koreans are making some damn good sport sedans. But on a per capita basis, the Fatherland has led the world in muscular more-doors for decades. Of course, some of these loony Limosinen are more lustworthy than others. Here are our ten favorites, past and present. (Note that we’re excluding aftermarket tuner cars.)

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