According to the rumours Ford will pull out of V8 Supercars at the end of the 2015 season. This, despite US powerhouse Penske signing a deal with Dick Johnson Racing. As it stands there will only be six Fords on the grid next year.
The mainstream media is bemoaning the end of the classic Ford v Holden rivalry. To be honest, it was that rivalry, and the organsiers’ pursuit of it post the Nissan GT-R era, that lost me to local touring car racing. It was just too contrived and too insular for me. I liked the variety of the pre-V8 Supercars era. Where I used to follow the local tintops with great enthusiasm I became moderately interested around Bathurst, but that was it.
Preivously, I’ve been sceptical of the Car of the Future concept, but thankfully for fans of the sport manufacturers like Nissan, Mercedes and Volvo have come on board.
Now that Ford looks increasingly likely to pull the pin—a reasonable decision given the lack of local product you would think—I find that my level of interest in this decision is incredibly low.
So, Ford will leave V8 Supercars. Does anyone really care?
10 replies on “V8 Supercars: Ford’s Car of the Past?”
I care not. Bring back the 2l super tourers. A great era of Motorsport. As were the e30/Sierra/gtr eras. Btcc was a great series. Taxis are a bit meh to me.
They race cars with engines very few people buy and they advertise EcoBoost on a Falcon that very few are aware of.
I cannot for the life of me work out why Volvo got involved with V8 racing, it just doesn’t make for a viable business model.
What happened to the days when the grid at Mount Panorama was over subscribed, cars where gridded up around onto Conrod straight, now they are lucky to have 25 entries.
If that is not a sign the the formula is busted I don’t know what is.
My only concern with this news is that the bogans will discover GT3 racing and turn up to wreck the 12 Hour. It’s currently quite pleasant being able to take your missus to the mountain without some VB-fuelled red neck threatening to rape her.
Not at all. Car of the future was a rubbish idea. Dead even before it was born
What I think Australian Touring cars should do is align their rules from 2016 to those of DTM and Japanese Super GT500 – 2 litre turbos. Almost every manufacturer has them and almost every manufacturer could come on board if they wanted. And it we opted for common rules we could even get some Japanese or DTM cars over here for races like Bathurst.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/107154
If we internationalise then we stand a good chance of sustaining a viable touring car championship over the course of the year as well as offering the potential of some really special distance races. Imagine the Mercedes, Audi or BM DTM teams coming to Bathurst along with some top races from Toyota and others out of Japan, joining our best in the same specced cars.
I would put aside a Sunday for that.
Use of the word “contrived” is right, Liam. As I understand it, there’s a control chassis – so a V8 Supercar is not a Volvo S60, a Ford Falcon, a Mercedes E-Class , a Holden Commodore, or a Toyota Camry or Nissan (something) other than in name.
It’s amusing that Volvo have latched onto the “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” mantra for its TV commercials.
On the V8 Supercar website the focus is on drivers, not what they drive.
WIll that stop me from watching some of the Bathurst 1000? No. Do I care who wins ? No. That said, I would like Betty Kilmenko’s Erebus Racing to do well.
All that’s happening with V8SC is the natural demise of a category which has actually done reasonably well to last as long as it did. COTF helped extend it a few years, just as the changes to SuperGT in the last few years
It happened to Group A touring cars (when Nissan started racing cars which were more realistically closed-cockpit prototypes), it happened to Group B rally cars, it happened to Group C sports-racing cars, it happened to Super Touring, it is happening now to the high-cost DTM. That’s simply the way it goes in the motorsport world.
I would support V8SC finding a new name and switching to the new DTM/SuperGT rules in 2017 or 2018, we’re already used to a contrived silhouette car formula so switching to another shouldn’t be a problem. Acceptance of those rules here should be contingent on the rules having a naturally-aspirated engine option though – a bit of variety to the soundtrack will be important to keep the fans coming.
It should be possible to get an international agreement on the biggest showpiece race of each series (Suzuka 1000km, a DTM endurance race, a DTM America endurance race and the Bathurst 1000) becoming international events for a “champions league” series with the top teams from each series earning entry the following year and each of the four races having a handful of extra entrants from the host nation’s series. The Bathurst race weekend could have a 300km consolation race (with single driver per car) to count for Australian series points on the Saturday, while the Bathurst 1000 on the Sunday would have the top teams from all four series plus the field rounded out by a number of the Australian teams, maybe those who place high at the Clipsal 500 earlier in the same year.
Hilarious!!! Do you guys think there is anything touring or not controlled chassis under a DTM car or Japanese GT500 race car. At least our V8 Supercars resemble something of a touring car from the outside. Also our cars sound a million times better than the 4.0L buzzing sound V8’s of the DTM cars and the horrible turbo sound of the Japanese cars. I’ve been to both types of races in recent years and whilst the DTM and Japanese cars are faster around the track they are far more boring and predictable to watch. The cars don’t move half as much on the track as ours do. Ask an F1 driver who sees all the cars race which he prefers to see or hear during the calendar year? I bet they vote V8 Supercars and there is a reason for that.
Is V8 Supercars a perfect formula? No, but at it’s price point it is the best in the world for tin top racing I believe. And to the guy calling for 2.0L Supertourers? OMG they were the darkest and most unpopular days for Australian motorsport. Cars looked and sounded boring as hell. Even the brits our looking to our series for inspiration and to make some changes because their touring car series is going down the shyte. You serious going to tell me you would stand at track side and prefer the sound of a 2.0L straight 4 buzzing around to the howl of a sweet revving 5.0L V8? Either you’re a bitter liar or you have problems with your hearing. Yeh initially 2.0L buzz boxes did race with V8 Supercars back in the early 90’s as a separate class. Trust me no one was interested in the 2.0L and the class was dropped completely.
The number one selling performance car sold in Australia is the Commodore SS. So if Aussies didn’t want V8’s and were like you suggest looking for something different, well the sales figures would show that. Remember I’m talking performance cars, not econoboxes.
Ford would make a massive mistake leaving V8 Supercars, and V8 Supercars would make a massive mistake not to allow Mustang and Camaro silhouettes to cover their controlled chassis in the future too. See this is what the shyte fight is about. Ford want a rule change to allow a Mustang coup or fastback as they’re are calling it to race and V8 Supercars wants to stick to 4 door sedans. Same problem happened back in the late 60’s early 70’s. Moffat wanted to campaign the Boss Mustang but the rule organisers wouldn’t let him because it was deemed a sport car which it wasn’t! Yet the 2 door Monaro was allowed, go figure. Otherwise today we wouldn’t be talking about Falcon GT’s but Mustangs racing dominating those years on the mountain like they did in Trans Am racing in America.
Terry you’ve nailed it!
My favourite race of the weekend was the muscle cars Good win to Greg Crick in the Charger 340, with Jim Richards in the Falcon sprint, Mustangs, Camaros, Monaros and XC hardtops. Magic.
I reckon going back to the 60’s and 70s would be a good thing. Classes on purchase price ( say $25k, $50k, $75k and $100k) Minimum 200 produced, stick a roll cage in them and race rubber on standard wheels. They could even drive them to the track (only not on the race rubber)! The speed differential on Conrod would be a problem, but it would not be the only race with that issue. Better than silhouette racing!
[…] now official: Ford will pull out of V8 Supercars after the completion of the 2015 season. It’s a story that’s been on the boil for months and was today confirmed by Ford Australia boss Bob […]