New Great Race

[MD]

Bathurst 2016

[colcol]

But the organisers will change the rules to suit General Motors and Ford, as they allways do, Ford will most likely race a Ford Mustang and General Motors will race a Camaro, these are 2 doors.
The rules were changed in 1992, so that there would be only locally made rear wheel drive cars with 4 doors, fitted with V-8 engines, as that what was selling 22 years ago, Turbo charged 2 door cars like the Nissan Skyline and Ford Sierra were 2 door cars imported and not made here, and organiser and chief of the Touring cars at that time Mike Raymond tried to justify the decision, by saying, just like in Formula 1, we are banning Turbo charged cars.
The current 'Car of the Future', rules are so that you can get a front wheel drive car, make it a rear wheel drive race car, just using the basic shape of the production car, look at the Nissan Altima, the production version is a 4 or 6 cylinder front wheel drive car, the racing version is rear wheel drive with a American Nissan Patrol V-8 engine fitted to it.
Kia and Hyundai at Bathurst in 2016, why not, if thats what the public are buying, bring it on, Colin.

[Barry Edmunds]

Two-door Ford Escorts (as raced by Michael Stillwell and John Bassett), Lotus Cortina Mk1's (Allan Moffat and Bob Jane) way back in the early 1960's and more recently Mazda RX7's (Allan Moffat) and XB model Falcon Hardtop (Allan Moffat again) were all raced in Australia as touring cars. Some clear thinking soul will obviously interpret the rules to suit themselves (and their budget) and front the start line with controversy on four wheels and lawyers in tow.

[alfagtv58]

Let me give you the tip, the 12 Hour is the new great race at Bathurst in my book.  It's a cracking event, it doesn't have the knuckle drager element that the 1000 gets, multiple marques, international drivers, proper endurance racing.

[colcol]

The 2 litre Super Tourers of the early 90's were absolute great, i went to the Victorian rounds, Calder, Winton, Phillip Island and Albert Park, BUT, there was no knuckle draggers interested, and the V-8 supporters with their "the only thing that should come in 2 litres is milk and fruit juice", another good series went away.
A few years ago you had the all nations cup, supported by Politition Clive Palmer, the Holden Monaro was allowed to be more modified than a V-8 Supercar, so the Monaro could win satifying the Falcon - Commodore drivers.
Its always we have to pander to the Ford - General Motors supporters, look what happened to the fabulous Group A Touring Cars, Colin.

[MD]

I dunno. You blokes are pretty harsh. Look on the bright side. Your track event ticket will last a week instead of a day cause that's how long the Kia shopping basket will take to complete the event.

Value for money !!

[colcol]

Except, they will be allowed to run a 5 litre V-8, and if they don't make one, then the 'car of the future' organisers will supply you with a control motor with bits made by engine parts makers that look like the Ford and General Motors pushrod,V-8's, except they are not made by them.
Volvo were going to use this engine, because they don't currently build a V-8, but they made one about 10 years ago, [designed by Yamaha?], and they are going to bore and stroke it to 5 litre.
When the 'car of the future' started a few years ago as a project to race other cars than Falcons and Commodores, they were all going to use 'crate' engines, that is a motor that gets delivered on a crate from Mexico for about $17,000, to replace the $120,000 units they were using,....except Mercedes AMG and Nissan wouldn't want to use such motors in their cars, Colin.

[vin sharp]

I don't know exactly which crate engines they were suggesting back then, but as for the Ute series, I was "privileged"? to witness the opening of the genuine GM-Holden spare parts crate and removal of heads from a new replacement engine for the ute series......pistons had hammer marks on tops and the skirt diameter shavings still collected around the top of the cylinder from where the too large pistons were forced down into the bores on several cylinders. might explain the piston knock and oil consumption that you hear about ....  GM quality direct from Mexico for LESS than $1900 complete with all ancillaries. This is what you get when you stump up your dollars for an "all Aussie" muscle car......with an "American" V8.....
Let's hope the Australian built bottom ends of 159s etc had a bit more quality control.

[colcol]

The $17,000 'crate' engines were a thought bubble for a few months until they worked out that you only get what you pay for, Mark Skaithe and co were trying to build the new cars cheaper than the old cars.
When it was blue vs red, and they would both have the same 'crate' engines from their parent companys in Mexico, when AMG Mercedes and Nissan turned up with quad overhead cams, they decided they better stick with their current engines, Colin.