Tourenwagen

Tourenwagen, literally "touring car" in German, is a class of race cars based on production road cars that compete in touring car racing. The term describes a broad concept rather than a single technical specification, and the exact rules have varied across eras and championships. In general, touring cars are closer to road-going models than purpose-built sports or prototype racers, though the level of modification and the appearance of the cars have differed with regulations.

Historically, European touring car racing began in the mid-20th century with events where production models were adapted for competition. Over time the category evolved through several regulatory regimes. In the 1960s through the 1980s, groups such as Group 2 and later Group A governed touring cars, allowing significant but controlled modifications to production models. The 1990s saw the rise of the Super Touring (or “touring car”) formulas, which standardized the cars more strictly and created highly competitive, widely contested national championships and regional series, including the British Touring Car Championship and the European Touring Car Championship.

From the 2000s onward, the touring car world shifted again with the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM) and, internationally, the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC). In 2018, the WTCC was rebranded as the FIA World Touring Car Cup (WTCR), adopting the TCR specification, a set of widely adopted production-based regulations used by many national and regional series.

Today, the term Tourenwagen encompasses a range of production-based touring car racing formats, from national championships to international series, with regulations evolving to balance cost, competition, and relevance to road cars.