The championship was inaugurated in 1987, with the inaugural title decided by two races held at Winton Motor Raceway in Victoria on 27 September of that year. From those modest beginnings the competition expanded into a full series format in 1988, reflecting the appetite for production car racing in the Australian domestic scene.
The series operated under Group 3E regulations in its early period, but regulatory changes in 1990 rendered a range of performance vehicles ineligible for competition. Cars with turbocharged engines and V8 powerplants were among those excluded, narrowing the competitive field. In 1994 and 1995 the restrictions became even more pronounced, with entry limited exclusively to front-wheel-drive cars displacing less than 2.5 litres — a constraint that significantly shaped the character of the championship during that period.
The launch of the Australian GT Production Car Championship in 1996 introduced a separate category accommodating higher-performance GT-class cars, including the Porsche 911 and Ferrari F355. The creation of this rival category effectively ended the original Australian Production Car Championship, which was discontinued that year as competitor focus shifted to the new GT-oriented class.
The period between 1996 and 2002 saw the production car landscape in Australia reorganised several times. The Australian Nations Cup Championship absorbed the GT cars from the old GT Production Car class around 2000, and further reclassification of high-performance models into a new Australian GT Performance Car Championship in 2003 left a gap that the original production car format could fill once more.
The Australian GT Production Car Championship reverted to the Australian Production Car Championship name for the 2003 season, marking the concept's return after the hiatus. For 2008 a further consolidation took place when the Australian Performance Car Championship merged its competitor base with the Australian Production Car Championship, with both contesting the Australian Manufacturers' Championship. Within that structure, the Australian Production Car Championship title was awarded to the highest-scoring driver across the combined event calendar.
This arrangement continued through 2015, giving the championship a settled if complex identity within the broader Shannons Nationals Motor Racing Championships programme.
In 2016 the category underwent another restructuring, with the Australian Manufacturers' Championship rebrand becoming the Australian Production Car Series. The new name better reflected the nature of the competition and the cars involved, and was the title under which the category became most widely known in the 2010s and early 2020s.
In 2025 the series departed from its longstanding sanctioning arrangement with Motorsport Australia and its predecessor organisation the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, switching instead to the Australian Auto Sport Alliance. Under the new arrangement the series runs within the Hi-Tec Oils Super Series event calendar. The category organiser cited reduced entry fees, improved television coverage, and greater certainty of track time at events as the principal reasons for the change.
The Australian Production Car Series occupies a distinct niche in Australian motorsport as a championship built around showroom-derived vehicles rather than purpose-built racing machinery. Its longevity — spanning nearly four decades under various names — reflects sustained grassroots interest in production car competition, providing a proving ground for talented club-level and semi-professional drivers who might not otherwise have access to high-profile circuit racing.
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