The European touring car series had been created in 1963 by Willy Stenger at the behest of the FIA, originally under the name European Touring Car Challenge. The series combined circuit races with hillclimbs as a pan-European championship for saloon cars, but it was not widely regarded as a true championship until the early 1970s. The renaming to European Touring Car Championship in 1970 was a formal step in that evolution; the first incarnation of the series would run continuously from 1963 until 1988.
Group 2 again became the principal category for 1970, though the regulations were considerably more liberal than the previous Group 2 rules. This shift effectively reshaped the competitive order. Several formerly quick machines lost eligibility: the BMW 2002 Turbo was excluded, and the Porsche 911 was reclassified as a GT car, removing it from touring car contention.
BMW was not yet ready with a competitive alternative and Ford's entry — the 2300 GT — proved both unreliable and underpowered. That left the field to a handful of genuine contenders. Alpina attacked the 1600 cc class, Abarth was permitted to run its TCR again, and Alfa Romeo homologated a lightweight version of the 1750 GTV which was named the 2000 GTAm.
Toine Hezemans, a Dutch driver with a background in Porsche competition, drove the Alfa Romeo 2000 GTAm to the drivers' championship. The title battle was fiercely contested against the Abarth TCR entered by Abt, with the two sides employing various strategic tactics to deny each other points — a style of competition that attracted criticism at the time but was not unusual in the broader context of European motorsport. Hezemans emerged victorious and was described as the "smiling champion," with Alfa Romeo satisfied to have taken the title.
Despite the absence of a front-running works BMW programme, the Munich manufacturer claimed the manufacturers' title on the strength of race wins taken by the Alpina-prepared 1600 machines in the smaller capacity classes. The manufacturers' championship used a different points structure from the drivers' title, allowing BMW to accumulate enough results across the season to claim the honour even while Alfa Romeo dominated the outright battles.
The 1970 season illustrated the fragility of touring car regulations in transition. A single rules shift transformed the competitive hierarchy almost overnight, removing Porsche and BMW's most potent weapons and handing the stage to Alfa Romeo's homologation special. The Hezemans title also pointed toward the increasingly important role of manufacturers producing lightweight, purpose-built homologation cars to exploit touring car regulations — a trend that would intensify throughout the decade.