The 1958 BRSCC British Saloon Car Championship was the inaugural season of the

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

. The series was open to four separate classes, up to 1200cc, 1201-1600cc, 1601-2700cc and 2701cc and above. Equal championship points were to be scored in each class, meaning any driver could win the championship without winning any races outright. The first ever round was actually held on 26 December 1957 at

Brands Hatch Brands Hatch is a motor racing circuit in West Kingsdown, Kent, England, United Kingdom. Originally used as a grasstrack motorcycle circuit on farmland, it hosted 12 runnings of the British Grand Prix between 1964 and 1986 and currently hosts ...

. The final round of the year was held on 5 October back at Brands Hatch.

Jack Sears Jack Sears (16 February 1930 – 6 August 2016) was a British race and rally driver, and was one of the principal organisers of the 1968 London-Sydney Marathon. Biography Sears was popularly known as "Gentleman Jack". His son David is a ...

and Tommy Sopwith ended the final race on the same number of championship points. With this a possibility going into the final round it was initially suggested the champion would be decided by the toss of a coin. The idea was very unpopular with both drivers, and it was decided two identical looking Marcus Chambers-owned

Riley One-Point-Five The Riley One-Point-Five and similar Wolseley 1500 are cars produced by Riley and Wolseley respectively from 1957 until 1965. They utilised the Morris Minor floorpan, suspension and steering but were fitted with the larger B-Series engine and ...

works rally cars would be brought along for a five lap shoot-out. To make the race fair, they raced five laps, switched cars, then raced five laps again with the driver who had the quickest combined time being crowned champion. In extremely wet conditions, the first head to head was won by Sopwith by 2.2 seconds. The second race was won by Sears by 3.8 seconds. This meant that Sears was crowned the first ever BSCC champion.

Calendar

Overall winners of multi-class races in bold. ¹Classes combined.

Championship results

References

External links

Official website of the British Touring Car Championship
{{BTCC seasons British Touring Car Championship seasons

British Saloon Car Championship The British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), officially known as the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship for sponsorship reasons, is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom, currently organised and administered by ...

Saloon Car Championship