HomeCar CultureDTM salutes all-time top cars and drivers

DTM salutes all-time top cars and drivers

German Touring Car series begins delayed 2020 season August 1-2 at Spa

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You likely know how American road-racing fans cherish the heyday of the Trans-Am series. In fact, you likely are part of that group.

Anyway, there are similar sentiments in Germany for the DTM, the famed Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (German Touring Car Championship), which was discontinued after 1996 but then was reborn a few years later under the same initials but with Masters instead of Championship as the M word.

As the DTM prepares for the delayed start to its 2020 season, now scheduled to being August 1-2 at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, the series has produced lists of its 10-greatest drivers and 10-greatest cars. 

Both lists are impressive. 

“It’s funny,” the series says in its list of cars, “you measure the great racing cars by their results. But, too often, you judge them emotionally, too. Despite being a rolling frame of metal and carbon-fiber, the best racing cars are alive – they communicate something to us that’s hard to explain.

“That’s why our list of the DTM’s 10 greatest cars isn’t simply a recap of wins, poles and fastest laps, it’s a roadmap of how we lived, how we raced, and how we remember.”

Nico Müller (SUI), Audi

And now, the list, though with no explanation from the DTM why the top-10 list includes only 9 vehicles:

9. 2013-present Audi RS 5 DTM

8. 2012-2018 Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM

7. 2000-2003 Abt-Audi TT-R

6 1990-1992 Audi V8 quattro

5. 1991-1994 Ford Mustang

4. 1993-1996 Opel Calibra V6 4×4

3. 1993-1996 Alfa Romeo 155 V6

2. 1985-1989 Ford Sierra Turbo

  1. 1987-1993 BMW M3 (E30)

And for the top-10 drivers of such cars? Well, they add a true the international nature of a racing series dominated by German-produced vehicles:

10. Marco Wittmann (Germany)

9. Bruno Spengler (Canada)

8. Rene Rast (Germany)

7. Jamie Green (Great Britain)

6. Nicola Larini (Italy)

5. Kurt Thiim (Denmark)

4. Gary Paffett (Great Britain)

3. Mattias Ekstrom (Sweden)

2. Klaus Ludwig (Germany)

  1. Bern Schneider (Germany)
Larry Edsall
Larry Edsall
A former daily newspaper sports editor, Larry Edsall spent a dozen years as an editor at AutoWeek magazine before making the transition to writing for the web and becoming the author of more than 15 automotive books. In addition to being founding editor at ClassicCars.com, Larry has written for The New York Times and The Detroit News and was an adjunct honors professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

5 COMMENTS

  1. Actually there was a another version I saw of the DTM’s 10 Greatest Cars article which had the BMW M4 DTM listed as #10

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