The Australian Touring Car Championship was an old stomping ground of Nissan's R32 Skyline GT-R; a car that local media quickly dubbed Godzilla. However it's utter domination of the ATCC series came to an end in 1993 when the governing body changed its Class A regulations. The GT-R was outlawed, paving the way for an exclusive Ford vs Holden V8 battle.
20 years on and Nissan have announced they will return to the V8 Supercars series in 2013. The Kelly Racing team will field four Nissans next year, and will receive full backing from NISMO. While many of us are hoping to see R35 GT-Rs, due to the COTF rules many media are tipping an Altima variant as the likely candidate.
- Charles Kha
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VK engines are doing great in other forms of racing (FIA GT1, LMP2, etc) so it should do well against those ford and holden V8s. Go Godzilla!
Can't wait to see the single minded tunnel visioned Ford/Holden fans yell sacrilege over this! Go Nissan!
The car that the race car will be based upon will be an entirely new platform. It will be sold world wide by Nissan. The most important part will be that it will be V8, it will be a 4 door sedan and it will be rear wheel drive. The race car itself will use the production V8 block and cylinder heads with the rest being developed in house by Kelly Racing in conjuction with Nismo Japan and Nissan world wide.
I hope imports hand Holdens and Fords their arses on a platter, even better if they are V6's or small capacity V8's showing that 6.0L's etc are not needed!!!!
Beautiful CBA-R35
The current GTR GT1 has been running the VK56DE 5.6-liter V8 instead of the turboed 3.8 V6 in the production car. This also runs a ricardo 6 spd sequential to 18x11 wheels. So it isn't a leap into the dark for Nismo.
Awesome news. Can't wait to see the crap Fords and Holdens getting wasted by Nissan!
wow lots of morons posted who have no idea what v8 supercars is or what the rules are... especially the idiot who thinks there will be v6s, or the people who think it will be a r35 gtr..
Too bad it won't be the R35.
Meh, will it have to run a 5L pushrod V8 or will these Car of The Future be allowed to run OHC's????
Controll chassies... What a GREAT way to ruin a class...
Good News.. this makes things interesting - Thanks
for all those people getting amped over nissan cleaning up because there car will be soo much more powerful keep dreaming, all the cars will still be power,weight,torque etc limited so really all it will be is the same old holden/ford cars they have now but with a Nissan body.
G37 sedan?
Either way ... hopefully this paves the way for opening up the doors to more manufactures to join and hopefully getting a greater srpead of cars and more motorsport goodness!
I'm hoping for a GTR based on the styling and drivetrain of Super GT.
If they use the altima then they can't argue that wins on Sunday will translate to sales on Monday. The cars would have nothing in common (RWD V8 winning races vs FWD V6 driven by grannies).
A VK56VD mounted into an R35 with appropriately modified RWD drivetrain? sounds like a Falcodore killer to me.
Put the Infinite M56 V8 in a GT-R and call it a day.
Im secertly hoping that they will do a v8 swap to the R35's drivetrain... even if its NA can u imagine a thundering v8 in a corner carving GT-R?? Nissian already built the Juke-R so we all know they have the mad scientists to pull it off!! i love it when people build crazy contraptions so they can play by the "rulez"
Go Nissan at Bathurst 1000 2013.
there will be no GTR's or VK motors.
it'll be a nissan sedan shell with a homogulated 5.0L pushrod.
it'll be identical to the holdens and ford of current times, but itll have nissan badges and altima or G37 skyline headlights.
The new v8 series will have all cars built on an identical 4 door, rwd v8 chassis, with only the body shells varying by manufacturer. This does not mean nissan will be releasing a rwd 4 door saloon. Think toyota camry in Nascar.
About time - Both Holden's & Fords in the current V8 Supercar championships use 5.0L OHV V8 motors sourced from their respective parent companies in the US. They do not use the same motors available to the general public in the SS Commodores and XR8 Falcons.
Regardless of the engine/chassis restrictions, it's nice to see some new sheet metal and marque badges in the mix. I think I recall BMW and maybe Mercedes is looking into running in the series as well. Dodge will also be jumping into it from what I hear too.
yeah pstar agreed,
The new platform for V8 supercars coming in 2013 means that all cars will more or less be the same.
What panels the teams stick on the car matters very little as all the other components of the car are regulated by V8 supercars such as the control chassis. Even the engines from each manufacture, which will still remain as V8 (hence the name V8 supercars) will be subject to an engine parity system so that performance is equal across the board.
If they're wanting to enter with a RWD sedan, why not use the Skyline or the Fuga?
You all hate on Ford and Holden fans for thinking big capacity engines are the best. yet you Nissan fanboys are just as bias when you regard a FWD VTEC Honda as slow.
They are the biggest under dogs in the automotive world. Yet many have beaten CT9A;s, WRX, GT-R's around many a race track. little non-turbo FWD 4cylinders. HAH
@pstar..I agree. most these comment are from people thinking this is a AWD GTR and they do not have a clue about V8 anything..becuase V8's just aren't JDM
yeah the "car of the future" will be based on a controlled chassis and i believe they will still require a 5.0lt pushrod v8
so it would have to be a bespoke engine
none the less it's good to see it won't just be a two horse race anymore
What have to say bout that is that either a ford or a holden can't out run a R35 period so it's no comp
I was really pissed when they banned every other cars bar the taxis (Ford & Holden). I hope they get their arse handed to them by anyone else. Then they'll change the rules... again!
Oh oath..
I'm so over this taxi racing shit here in Aus.
I welcome back the change and would like to see more factories in the mix.
Can't wait to see the final product and piss some bogans right off.
As much as I love GTRs, I don't want this to happen to V8 Supercars again...V8s should remain solely Australian, and I think the Commodore and Falcon represent that well enough already...even though this will open up a larger audience, I'm still set in the old view of Holden v Ford only. Sorry guys..
I stopped watching V8 Supercars/ATCC when they banned the R32... 20 years later, I'm a grown up (physically anyway) and own a 32 GTR. But "stock car" racing is not the same as it was 20 years ago. Nowadays, everything is running tube chassis with plastic panels.
I personally think all forms of "stock car" racing should go back to homologation rules. Sure the cars wont be as fast, but when I see a proper X manufacturer vs Y manufacturer racing with cars that are basically hotted up versions of showroom cars, using their own engines and chassis, then I might actually start paying attention again. Having one platform, one engine, multiple bodies will do nothing to advance technology, as NASCAR shows.
yeah ok i dont quite get the GTR been in the V8 supercars casue the holdens and fords are based on a v8 ss commerdore and v8 ford gt and last time i checked the GTR is a twin trubo v6 and its a coupe were as the holdens and fords are 4 door sedans so unless nissian had a 4door v8 g35 in porduction and sold it over here i cant see the logic
Damn internet pros...speculate all day...just wait and see. All this talk translates to a big fat B S in my book.
Really , May be a lot of the people should have read the rule that have been Brought in for next year, And alot of you should think outside your own car market, the car used as a base for the race car has to be a rwd 4 door FR v8 , The can be from a car producers line up from anywere in the world.SO Nissan could run a Fuga/Infiniti m56 as currently that is only car that fits the rules,They do not have current models of the Cima or President,so they are out. Or nissan has a new car due for release between now and the start of the 2013 seasons. Toyota/Lexus,Bmw,Mercedes,Chryseler/Dodge,Masaratti,Porsche,Jaguar,Hyundai and maybe Audi all have cars that could be entered under the new rules.
The engine do not have to be 5.0 push rod v8s , As the engine have to use the Original block and Cylinder heads ,so there will be push rod , Dohc and quad cam engine of differing size in the field.All cars will have the power and torque level set the same. so this will mean that there will be different rev cut on the cars and they all wont sound they same like they do now. Ford also more than likley change to there 5.4 as ford can now use the quad cam and holden could go 6.2 or 7.0L units.
Only Time will Tell.
@Sciclone i tend to disagree with you. i think controlling certain parts of a car allows the teams to advance in other areas. almost every type of racing i watch and enjoy has controls in place.
it's not easy to gain tenths over the other teams which makes it a lot more challenging for the engineers. however, some teams have moments of genius and progress while the others play catch up
it's all good IMO, PS go nissan
It's a good start. Now they need to remove the pushrod engine restriction. Also, Hopefully Nissan is not allowed to run a rear drive Altima if they do not actually sell it. If they allow that then watch Ford and Holden go that way as well. It seems like they are one of the few in their class (you have to give them kudo's for sticking to it) that have held on to the FR platform and I am betting the V8supercars have a lot to do with it.
Its a step in the right direction, but it wont be a GTR for sometime soon.. let them get a few more names into the sport.. then start to relax the regulations for individual chassis etc. Hopefully in 20 years we'll be back to how it used to be and should have always been.
Nissan, it's time to make a new Cefiro. Now FWD, not fat, not ugly.
The Fuga seems too big to participate in V8 Supercars.
BRING back the GTR u need to otherwise there is no point for Aussie Touring Car
@Sciclone But V8 Supercars and even COTF do run the factory silhouette from manufacturers, they retain the original panels instead of a body shell like NASCAR, and they still use Chev and Ford block designs. With the technology that is coming in to play at this age, I don't think you'll see anything close to the ATCC 20 years ago unless you look towards grassroots motorsports, but even in the Godzilla era, teams such as Fred Gibson Motorsport still did in-house R&D just like they do today.
meh. It's nice to have another brand in the mix, but the differences between cars are insignificant with the rules they need to abide by. The car being raced will be no more a (whatever model Nissan chooses to base it off) than the Holdens are a commodore. They may as well be all the exact same car painted in different colours. Bring back Group A i say.
GTR!
Maybe it should be called Car of Yesteryear, bring back the old run what ya brung rules with a power and weight limits!!!!
"Having one platform, one engine, multiple bodies will do nothing to advance technology, as NASCAR shows."
You do know the 5 litre pushrod V8s GM and Ford use in V8supercar are punching out circa 630-650hp?
And the 5.6 litre VK56DE in GT1 makes 600hp with less torque? How's technology working out there?
Bodyshell will likely be Altima or infiniti G/M sedan.
I'm glad its not the ATCC of 20 years ago, because it was a dark period for Australian motor racing, if anything more irrelevant than what we have now, where one team tended to dominate every round for a whole season and the time difference from 1st to 2nd was usually bigger than what would cover the entire V8 supercar field. Probably the best period was the the first decade of V8s, where we still had plenty of drivers with personality battling it out in closely matched cars.
Great news, the GT-R is such a beast.
Great news, the GT-R is such a beast.
Great news, the GT-R is such a beast.