ANALYSIS: This is the car most likely to join Supercars

Will we really see more brands on the Supercars grid in the future?

RACE Chairman Barclay Nettlefold has made it clear he wants new car brands to join the Supercars field to bolster the competition between the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro – but how realistic is that?

Supercars has long-aspired to attracted more manufacturers to the sport, but apart from a brief period with factory-back Nissan and Volvo teams and a privately funded Mercedes-AMG (all of which ended with limited success and in a relatively short time frame) the sport has been a two horse race between Ford and General Motors since 1993.

This ‘closed shop’ approach certainly helped Supercars thrive in the 1990s and early 2000s as Ford and Holden tipped millions of dollars into the series every year, supporting multiple teams and even paying driver salaries. But those boom times are over and the sport faces an uncertain future with no public confirmation of what will replace the now-defunct Camaro; although upper-management at GM clearly have a plan.

But Supercar has made life difficult for itself now, with manufacturers likely uncertain how they will be received in the sport, by both their competitors but also the fans. Given the dramatic and drawn out parity debate through 2023, which made even Ford consider its future in the sport, and was only resolved by an expensive trip to a wind tunnel in the USA.

The good news is by going to such lengths Supercars has not only reaffirmed Ford’s commitment but it should give newcomers some peace-of-mind that the sport will do its best to ensure parity between them and the established brands.

The Lexus LC500 meets the basic requirements of a Supercar entry but is too upmarket to race Chevy and Ford

The challenger, though, will be finding new brands that have the motivation to join. And, to be blunt, there simply aren’t that many options. Gen3 is centred around V8-powered coupes and there just aren’t many of those left on the new car market. In fact, if you look beyond the Mustang the only other V8 two-door models are the Aston Martin Vantage, Bentley Continental GT, BMW 8-Series, Ferrari Roma and Lexus LC500.

Now, while those would make for a diverse and interesting Supercars grid (and live up to the ‘supercars’ name) there’s about as much chance of attracting those brands as there is of the sport going all-electric in 2025 – zero.

So, what are the realistic options? Well, assuming you can either convince a brand to run a V8 engine, even if it isn’t in the production model, or ditch the strict ‘V8-only’ policy, there are some obvious options. The two more realistic potential additions to the grid are the Toyota Supra and Nissan Z.

You can almost-immediately rule out the likes of the Audi RS5, BMW M4 and Mercedes-AMG C63 competing, because there’s no commercial benefit for those premium brands to compete against (and inevitably be beaten on a regular basis by) Chevrolet and Ford. It’s also a hard task for the local management of those brands to convince their German HQ to allow them to race a bespoke racing car in a domestic series when they have global GT3 and GT4 models available.

The BMW M4 GT3 is a global racing program, making Supercars a hard sell to the German brand

Toyota and Nissan are the only two cars that make any real sense for Supercars to pursue, given both are in-market rivals to the Mustang (but obviously not the Camaro because you haven’t been able to buy one here since 2020).

The challenge will be convincing either, or both, brands that there is value in spending marketing dollars on Supercars racing at a time when brands are being stretched by the needs to meet the incoming New Vehicle Efficiency Standard.

Again, to be blunt, Toyota would be a hard sell and for one overriding reason – to what benefit? The brand already dominates sales in the Australian market, accounting for almost one in every five new cars sold. Spending millions to race, in addition to all of its other local and international racing programs, just doesn’t seem necessary.

Nissan, however, is in a very different position. Its sales have been headed in the wrong direction the last few years, slipping outside the top 10 best-sellers in 2023. This year has started more positively, but crucially for the brand and for Supercars’ hopes, two critically important models for Australia are coming soon – a new Navara ute and Patrol SUV.

The Nissan Z is the most likely candidate to join the grid – but can the sport convince the brand to actually go racing?

As has been explained countless times, Ford and Holden didn’t go racing just to sell more Falcons/Mustangs and Commodores (and Chevrolet certainly didn’t do it to sell Camaros), but rather to help lift the brand’s image overall. Nissan made little secret that it raced the Altima to help sell the current Navara, as it was then-new when Kelly Racing was fielding its factory-backed squad.

Supercars fans, like a large percentage of the population, enjoy utes and four-wheel drive SUVs, so racing the Nissan Z would give the brand a platform to speak to potential Navara and Patrol buyers.

Make no mistake, that’s still a long-shot, as Nissan was burnt by the Altima program and won’t want to spend big bucks to be uncompetitive. It will also require a significant amount of financial investment – developing a car, engine program and attracting a team – and permission from global headquarters to even get on the grid.

So while it’s promising, and perfectly understandable, that RACE boss Nettlefold wants to open up the grid, nobody should underestimate the challenges it will take to get a new brand to join Ford and Chevrolet.