ANDY ROUSE

CHAMPION 1975, 1983, 1984, 1985

Andy Rouse has won more British Touring Car Championship titles than anyone else, but his legacy in the sport runs even deeper.

The quietly spoken former single-seater racer was an expert engineer too and, once he turned his attentions to Ford’s monstrous Sierra RS Cosworth and later the RS500, an iconic motorsport marriage was blessed. But that was towards the end of a long career in the category.

Rouse’s first title came with one of the series’ closest ever seasons. Three competitors were level on points after the 11 rounds – the amount of points awarded was dependent on the number of starters in each class. Stuart Graham (Chevrolet Camaro), Win Percy (Toyota Celica) and Rouse (Triumph Dolomite Sprint) all finished on 75 points after winning their class at the final round at Brands Hatch. But Rouse’s greater number of class wins gifted him the crown.

In 1980, Rouse’s former employer Broadspeed closed down and he bought the hardware to create Andy Rouse Engineering. There were further titles in the 1980s in an Alfa Romeo GTV6 and a Rover SD1, but the real hit came when he switched to Ford.

“We had talked to Ford quite a lot when I was running a Capri,” he says. “We knew the Cosworth was coming, and they got in touch with us. It was perfect timing – we had just moved into bigger premises in Coventry. We were ready.”

STEVE SOPER ON ROUSE

“An international chance should have happened for him. Through circumstances and no fault of his own, they didn’t really happen.

“He would know how good his car was. He was a good, nice guy to race against. He’d lean on you, but in a fair way. If he was coming up the inside, you knew it was checkmate. He’d never do anything unfair.”

Rouse initially used a Ford Sierra XR4TI in 1985: “It used a lot of the same suspension parts and had the same chassis as the Cosworth that was to come and it was also turbocharged, so we gained some knowledge there. So we had already done our research when the RS Cosworth came along in ’87. It was a great car but the handling was interesting – we weren’t allowed to lower it as much as we wanted to.”

Rouse built a number of cars for customers – they were the only weapons for outright race success – but those pesky lower-class cars could still steal in and nick the overall honours. There were two class wins for Rouse, whose battles with the likes of Tim Harvey, Steve Soper and Robb Gravett had the TV viewers enthralled, but the overall crown eluded him.

Rouse moved on to the Super Touring era and was instrumental in the two-litre revolution. He ran Toyota’s campaign for a couple of years before returning to the Blue Oval until the end of 1995, by which stage he had stepped down as a driver.