Super Manufacturers

Supercars is desperately seeking manufacturers to enter its series under the Gen2 regulations. The irony is that 20 years ago multiple manufacturers raced at Mount Panorama in the Super Touring Bathurst 1000s, having been shut out of V8 Supercars.

- Matt Coch

Welcome to the future. Supercars has ushered in the Gen2 regulations, the next step in the sport’s evolution. It’s meant to build on the foundations laid by the Car of the Future and set the sport up as the automotive industry in Australia goes through one of the most radical changes in its history. There’s only one problem, an elephant of sorts in the room. It’s the fact Supercars 2017-style looks much like it did last year and the year before.

The problem has been a lack of appetite from manufacturers to engage in the new rules and a similar reluctance from teams to take on the cost of developing a new car for the new regulations. After all, for the thick end of a generation, the top end of motorsport in Australia has been dominated by V8 racing. Brand it however you like, the fundamental formula has been a large chunk of iron wrapped up in a shell that shares more than a passing resemblance to the car you or I have parked in the driveway.

A lot of criticism has been levelled at Supercars in recent years because it’s no longer ‘relevant’ or that the cars are simply silhouettes of the family sedan they’re meant to represent. There’s truth in that but, if you’re honest about it, hasn’t that always been the case? Ever since Ford, Holden and Chrysler invested in homologation specials and fuelled the ‘Supercar Scare’ of the early 1970s, the sport has been moving ever so slowly away from what was originally a production-car style of racing.