Tour of Britain Rewound

Motor Racing Legends and the British Automobile Racing Club (BARC) have announced the Rewind Tour Britain, which will take place in May of next year. Modelled on the Tour of Britain of the 1970s, race circuits, special stages, and hill climbs will provide an all-asphalt challenge covering approximately 460 miles. Featuring four circuit races and 12 closed-road rally stages, all on tarmac, linked by public-road liaison sections, the three-day event will take in competition venues such as Thruxton, Shelsley Walsh and Castle Combe, alongside special stages run across estates, including Blenheim Palace, hill climbs, and military ranges like Caerwent and Epynt.

The original Avon Motor Tour of Britain combined race circuit heats, rally special stages and even drag strip runs  Photo Alan Cox

The event will be open to two-wheel drive cars up to 1986, with a vintage class at the front of the field as well as an invitation class for spectacular Group B rally super cars. Combining aspects of circuit racing and rallying in the spirit of the original Tour of Britain and events like Tour Auto, Coppa Internazionale dell’Umbria and others of the period, this new event is set for 27-30 May 2027.

This is, in fact, a second revival, after Fred Galagher and Alec Poole, hoping to meet with the same success that the Tour d’Italia and Tour Auto revival events had met with on the continent, created the Tour Britannia, with a similar circuit and hillclimb format that ran for ten years from 2006 to 2015.

The original Tour of Britain was created in 1973 as the Avon Motor Tour of Britain, a multi-day, 1,000-mile route combining race circuit heats, rally special stages and even drag strip runs, all using near-standard road cars. The new event is also for road legal cars, running on standard tyres. Regs and further information will be published at motorracinglegends.com.