It’s been more than 30 years since class warfare has been a feature of the Bathurst 1000 following the chapter closing in 1994.
Back then, the Australian Touring Car Championship welcomed the smaller capacity Class II 2.0-litre Touring Cars as did the Bathurst 1000 alongside a series run specifically for these regulations.
Class II started life as a sub-class in the British Touring Car Championship for 1990 and soon exploded as manufacturers began to take notice.
BMW, Vauxhall, Nissan, Toyota, Peugeot and more soon jumped onboard as the BTCC entered a golden era.
Talks of combining these with a V8-only formula centred around Ford and Holden were discussed throughout a tug of war between the ATCC’s stakeholders in 1992.
Equalisation between a V8 Holden or Ford and a Toyota Camry or Nissan’s Primera were shot down.
The two categories ran combined fields in 1993 with no equalisation and for two different titles.
Colin Bond led a factory Toyota effort, which was defeated by the privateer BMW M3 Motorsport team to the title.
Albeit, this was all forgotten behind the massive fight for outright honours between Ford and Holden.
Invited again to take part in 1994, only Steven Ellery in an old non-turbo Ford Sierra took up the offer as a new series run to Class II regulations returned The Australian Manufacturers’ Championship to the fore.
BMW backed the series from the start as Tony Longhurst and Paul Morris ‘raced’ against limited competition to battle for the crown.
Although the 2.0-litre class was hardly supported in the ATCC, Bathurst was another matter.
The BMW outfit led by Frank Gardner expanded to four entries, with Hyundai, Peugeot, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Ford all represented as part of a 12-car field.
Paul Morris and German ace Altfrid Heger finished six laps down to the outright winners on the way to the Class B victory in 10th.
It was a Munich sweep at the top as BMW completed a 1-2-3.
Future Supercars alumni included Greg Murphy in a Toyota Carina, Craig Baird as part of BMW’s entry, motoring journalist Peter McKay formed part of Phil Ward’s two-strong Mercedes-Benz team, Melinda Price in a Corolla and Geoff Full in the factory Hyundai Lantra.
BMW’s commitment to the class was rewarded when Audi and Volvo joined the 2.0-litre category in 1995, bolstered by strong privateer efforts representing Alfa Romeo, Opel and Peugeot.
However, this led to a breakaway and rivalry for the remainder of the 1990s between Super Touring and what was to be known as V8 Supercars in 1997.
This resulted in the conclusion to the class competition witnessed during the first 34-years of the race and is a part of the event, which continues to be missed to this day.