I’ll have fallen victim to my love of touring automobiles at this year’s Essen Motor Present and paid little consideration to the rest. Sorry, not sorry.

Okay, that is not completely true. That is the second highlight on historic racers from the present. Nonetheless, not like the legendary machines featured in my earlier post, these should not be the enduring names of the Group A period.

What we’ve listed here are the little warriors of the touring automobile world from an easier time—when Group 2 laws prevailed, and from 1971 there existed a European Touring Automobile Championship class devoted to automobiles below 1,300 cc.

For these of you who measure in items of freedom, that is only a mighty 79 cubic inches.

One automobile lacking from this lineup is the attractive Alfa Romeo GT Junior, the inaugural winner of the 1,300 division championship. What you see right here as a substitute is a captivating combination of varied a long time, nations, and drive system configurations.

The NSU TT is certainly one of my favourite shapes from the 60s. With its rear-wheel-drive, air-cooled, rear-wheel-drive format, it is a quirky little automobile. NSU was an attention-grabbing model, integrated into Auto Union, which later turned modern-day Audi. And sure, it served as the inspiration for the now-iconic Audi TT, each in title and design philosophy.

Italy and France have lengthy been masters of small automobile engineering, and the attractive Fiat 128 Coupé was an aggressive contender when it debuted within the 1972 range. Then there may be this Renault 5, which stunned me. Aside from the wild R5 Turbo II in rallies, I had no thought the Renault 5 raced in any main circuit-based mostly sequence.

And that is the great thing about the 1300 European Touring Automobile Problem (1300 ETC) championship at the moment. It’s a pretty open sequence, permitting any sub-1,300 cc automobile that follows the laws as much as and together with the 1981 FIA Appendix J guidelines to enter.

That is why this Mk1 VW Polo is within the combine. In Europe, these little hatchbacks are effectively thought to be Mountain Cup hillclimb machines; however, having watched a number of 1300 ETC races, I can guarantee you the competition is as fierce as ever, whatever the age of the automobiles or their unique goal.

Preserving historic racing sequences is necessary; however, it may be prohibitively costly. These small, however mighty racers present a comparatively inexpensive entry level into the world of historic touring automobiles—they usually need to be celebrated.

I’m wondering how much a Mk1 Ford Escort 1300 goes for today…