1988 Australian Touring Car Championship

The 1988 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned motor racing title for drivers of Group 3A Touring Cars. It was the 29th running of the Australian Touring Car Championship. Promoted as the “1988 Shell Ultra Australian Touring Car Championship”, it began on 6 March at Calder Park Raceway and ended on 17 July at Oran Park Raceway after nine rounds. The 1988 Australian Manufacturers' Championship was contested over the same nine round series.

The championship was dominated by those driving the Ford Sierra RS500, specifically the Shell Ultra-Hi Racing Sierra's of Dick Johnson and John Bowe. Between them the pair won eight of the nine rounds with Johnson winning his 3rd touring car championship. Tony Longhurst was the only other driver to win a round in his Freeport Racing Sierra. Longhurst won Round 6 at Lakeside from Johnson after Dick was penalised 1 minute for jumping the start.

With Sierra's winning each round of the championship, 1988 was the first time since the Holden A9X Torana's of 1979 that a single model car had won each round of the championship.

Due to the speed of the Sierra's, the BMW M3, now being run by Peter Brock's Mobil 1 Racing was reduced to a class car rather than the outright contender it was in 1987. Defending champion Jim Richards, new to the Mobil team in 1988, had a best finish of 3rd at Winton while Brock could finish no higher than 4th at Wanneroo. Nissan debuted their new turbocharged, Skyline HR31 GTS-R for 1987 drivers Glenn Seton and George Fury which was expected to challenge the Sierra's, but the teams testing and development of the straight 6 GTS-R was in the races and the car didn't have the speed of the Fords with a best finish of 3rd for Fury at Amaroo Park. Delays in the building of the new fuel injected VL Commodore SS Group A SV also saw to it that the Holden challenge, headed by Larry Perkins in the 1987 model 'HDT' VL with backing from Holden Special Vehicles, was almost non-existent. Perkins best finish was 3rd at Sandown in Round 7.