The Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (German Touring Car Championship, or DTM) was a touring car racing series held from 1984 to 1996 and then from 2000 onward. Originally based in Germany, it held additional rounds elsewhere in Europe and later worldwide. Its widespread appeal can be attributed to the production based race cars that participated in this series. Garden variety BMW’s, Audi’s, Alfa’s, Benzes and others were highly modified to increase grip, handling and power, but did not lose their recognizable silhouettes through the modification process.
The new DTM from 2000 onward focused more on prototype racing as opposed to using production based race cars in previous iterations of DTM. Keeping with tradition of the original DTM, race cars are still fast and spectacular while still being relatively cheap to build and campaign. All new DTM cars are limited to the use of a 4.0L V8 in RWD configuration and are air restricted to 470hp. More info can be found here.
The following series of videos showcases the many stages of DTM up to current generation, illustrating why the DTM series was so popular: competitive racing, spectacular crashes featuring cars not different than what you might find roaming your local parking lot.