It marks 30-years since European ideas were put to use in the United States through the launch of the North American Touring Car Championship.
Super Touring had just been taken on by the FIA and was hitting its peak in popularity, particularly in Britain.
Founded by CART team owners Gerald Forsythe and Roger Elliott alongside BTCC supremo Alan Gow, the North American Touring Car Championship was launched in mid-1995 to support the IndyCar Series on the road and street courses.
Dodge and Honda backed the series by entering factory teams, with many privateers also making up the field.
The inaugural season in 1996 was spread across 16 races held at Lime Rock Park, Belle Isle, Portland International Raceway, Toronto, Circuit de Trois-Rivieres, Mid-Ohio, Pacific Plane and Laguna Seca.
Dodge fully committed to the series by transforming the Stratus into a touring car brimmed by technology thanks to its constructor, IndyCar team PacWest Racing.
TC Kline ran the Honda assault led by Randy Pobst, who won the maiden title after taking five wins during the season to defeat Dodge factory pair Dominic Dobson and David Donohue.
New Zealander Rod Millen represented a token Toyota result, while Darren Law led the privateers in his Hartong Motorsports BMW 318i from Jeff Andretti’s Ford Mondeo.
Barely reaching a grid of 10 cars at each round, it was hoped 1997 these lifted.
This proved not the case and was the death knell for the series.
Neil Crompton joined the championship in 1997 with IndyCar team Tasman Motorsport, but was disqualified in Detroit leading to the squad missing the next round out of protest.
This cost Crompton the title as Dodge’s Donohue took the final NATCC ahead of Honda’s Peter Cunningham.
As for the reigning champion, Pobst and TC Kline went to BMWs, which proved not successful on the way to fifth.
From there, the promised manufacturer entries failed to materialised and Dodge pulled out leaving the stakeholders no choice but to cancel the championship.