Nissan GT-R and V8 Supercars part ways
June 23, 2009 by Karl Peskett
It’s only been four rounds, but Nissan’s heroic GT-R is no longer the safety and course car for the 2009 V8 Supercar series.
Buried in the bottom of a press release for the Hidden Valley round, the statement was very vague in its reasons. We understand, however, that it was alcohol branding which raised the ire of Nissan.
It refused to place signage on the car, and that was that. The statement read:
“V8 Supercars Australia and Nissan Australia have reached an agreement to end their partnership, in which Nissan provided the official Safety Car for the Championship Series.”
“Nissan fielded the world class Nissan GT-R as the official Safety Car for the first four events of the 2009 V8 Supercar Championship Series with great success and exposure for both brands.
“The decision to discontinue the partnership was amicable and taken in the best interests of both parties. The two companies look forward to exploring other partnerships in the future.”
As yet, a replacement hasn’t been found. But that’s hardly surprising, isn’t it? V8 Supercars has slipped off the radar of many motoring enthusiasts.
Surely, if the sport was as big as head honcho Tony Cochrane makes out, then manufacturers should be falling over themselves to have their car at the head of the field. Surely the exposure is worth every cent spent.
And surely they wouldn’t have a problem with alcohol signage put on their car, would they?
Let us know what you think in the comments.
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A major factor in the V8 Supercars losing popularity is the absolutely appalling coverage by Channel 7.
Big thumbs up to Nissan for standing their moral ground (if, indeed this is the reason they pulled the GT-R). Alcohol and cars don’t mix. The association is as abhorrent as cigarettes and teenagers.
At a time when Nissan needs as much exposure as possible, and isn’t doing much else to leverage their engineering capabilities (ie, The GT-R), it would have been a big call to pull the GT-R from TV screens nationally.
When we are trying to prevent drink driving – getting an alco signage on the safety car for a motorsport kinda defeats the purpose!
Alcohol – driving – safety – these three do not mix!
Yep, kudos to Nissan, they’ve obviously got their values in the right place. Perhaps the V8 Supercar series would be better served by a Kingswood ute with ridiculous mud flaps, some bull horns on the grill and a “RUM PIG” number plate setting the pace.
Whats with Aussies and alcohol, and whats with Australian Super cars and finding “ways” to get Nissan out?
reanault owns nissan and I can tell that nissan au wanted to put the signs up but the worlds safest brand wouldn’t let them. Plus alcohol and safety don’t mix. Renault has a very valid point and although nissan au isn’t doing great here it tops charts in eu USA and japan…
No great loss as far as I’m concerned – both the Audi V8 and Chrysler 300C sounded fantastic as course cars, the Nissan’s got nothing in comparison sound wise and the look of the thing is not going to win any style awards.
It may have Supercar status but has little charisma – it’s a technical overkill car.
A nice 6.3 litre Benz, I’m sure, would be very nice as a safety car.
Its obvious that you dont read newspapers and try to pass off your opinion as fact Mr Peskitt. In the Sunday Telegraph there was an article about how the V8 supercars have a plan to overtake the NRL and be the top sport in NSW in 3 years time.
It also says that they want other manufacturers in the series by 2012. Mark Skaife is head of a “cars of the future” program and has already had talks with other manufacturers.
It wont surprise me if it does happen as ive watched more of the V8s than i have Rugby League this year ’cause im sick of the constant interference of the video ref and their moronic decisions.
As for alcohol sponsorship of the V8s, i dont see a problem with it. Afterall they have alcohol sponsorship in the NRL and no one complains about that, and look how many players get into trouble after a night on the piss! Now how many V8 Supercar drivers get into trouble for the same or similar things? I havent heard of any.
Ah, the infamous ‘car of the future’. Does this future involve such things as relevance to road going vehicles? So are ABS, ESC, AWD, low pressure turbocharging and engines with overhead cams going to be allowed, OR are V8SA going to continue to maintain that pushrod V8s that you cannot actually purchase in a road going vehicle are the only way.
Also, wrt ‘other manufacturers’, Nissan used to compete but got banned, BMW surely wouldn’t want to be seen dead putting a pushrod engine in its vehicles and Toyota, whilst competing in NASCAR (and thus having a readily compliant engine) currently sells almost as many cars in Australia as the two V8 protagonists combined without needing a costly motorsport program. So WHO are these other manufacturers? Chrysler? (has a NASCAR program but as a brand is pretty irrelevant in Australia anyway) Mitsubishi? Mercedes? Mazda (using a rebadged V8 engine in a Mazda 6 silhouette?)
Whilst Tony Cochrane may have ‘a plan’ to be bigger than the Beatles, he seems to forget that there is a major economic downturn currently taking place, one of his two manufacturers parent companies has been nationalised and the other has just announced a major loss for the last financial year.
Bring back international Group A – or better still, ressurect the Australian Production car championship that has relevant road cars cometing against each other in structured classes.
Well Godzilla is gone again…
I couldn’t agree more Falcodore. V8 Supercar Australia a proactively looking at growing the sport and have taken steps like the cars of the future program to aid this.
Also cost cutting measures implemented as of next year’s series will see some more control parts to help the continuity of the series in the future.
For a sport that is apparently on the verge of collapse, crowd numbers have been up over the past 2-3 years and TV audiences have also been up. I would like to see where you got your facts from Karl?
After speaking with officials who actually drive the course and safety cars, the feedback of the Maxima Course cars is that they were absolute rubbish, most have said they handled worse than the 300C’s of last year. Let’s just hope the cars they replace the Nissan’s with are more interesting.
@ Falcadore – And you think that the Sunday Telegraph is a reliable source of factual information? Keep dreaming mate…
Tommo, the article said that Skaifey has had talks with Nissan and Toyota among others. They want as many manufacturers as they can get.
As for the technical aspects (engines etc), they didnt go into that. My guess is it will be more like Nascar but i hope they keep the individual look of each brand and the cars they run. I dont like how Nascars are identical in every aspect, too much sameness.
I attended the V8’s in Darwin and was disappointed not to see the GTR.
The racing was the poorest I’ve seen in the 12 years I’ve been going and the 2 race format has eliminated the build up the 3 race format had. My guess the crowd was down at least by 50%.
The article about V8 Supercars overtaking Rugby League in popularity is actaully a Media Release from the V8SC website. So not really a question of the Telegraph’s reliability.
Somehow I seperate drinking with driving, I don’t agree with it incourages drink driving.
Maybe they should limit the racing to 100 km/h cause it incourages speeding…
@ Jimmy – No reason not to believe it. Show me reliable information that says otherwise.
Guys, I for one would love to see other manufacturers allowed to compete – but the thing is they used to be able to and then the local manufacturers sooked and took away the ability for the others to compete…
A simple history lesson – we used to have a thing called Group A. Minimum production numbers etc of a car you could buy. Ford raced a vehicle you couldn’t actually buy here (the Sierra RS500 Cosworth for you young-uns) and no one cared (it had the right badge on the front). Nissan built a better mousetrap (the GT-R), which was actually available from Nissan dealerships as new (100 brought in this way) won the ATCC (as it was called back then) and was promptly booed, then banned, as were all other manufacturers. A rival series based on the european two-litre touring cars was formed, but it withered and died. Then the Australian Production Car Championship (which was a support category for the 2 litres) continued for a few years (cars you could actually buy), and quite a few manufacturers raced in this (would you believe Toyota and Mitsubishi won the under 4L six cylinder ‘family’ car class ahead of Ford and Holden!), but TV rights are hard to get when Ford and Holden don’t want to be a part of it in Australia, so it withered and died too.
I have no doubt that Skaifey has ‘talked’ with other manufacturers, but I remain skeptical that they would commit to a series that has a history of excluding those that have the ‘wrong badge’ when it comes to doing the winning
This is one subject that is sure to cause a lot of debate. My own 2 cents worth is I am pushing 50 and have become a bit nonplussed with V8 Supercars. I lived through the Improved production, group C, group A and V8 years. The V8’s look and sound great. But (always a but!) at the front of the field, there is not a lot of great dices anymore. Sure through the field there is but unless you are at the track (and I go to a lot of races), you don’t see much of that on TV. I am also a bit disapointed with the size of the grids at the bigger tracks like Bathurst and PI. Sure some tracks have a grid limit but 34 or 40 cars at Bathurst is a bit thin. I used to love watching Peter Wiliamson harassing the big cars in his Celica over the mountain, who can forget Brocky in the XU1’s giving Moffat and French a hard time? But times move on and I guess nowe that we have to accept that it is a team sport and the pit crew are part of the race and therefor the overtaking is done via pit stops. I just think its a bit of a shame not to see other makes, big cars (Kev’s Camaro) versus smaller cars (Moff’s RX7) versus Aussie know how (Brocks Commodore and Dicks Falcon) all in one race.
Maybe I am just getting old! Sigh!
The ATCC and Group A idea was/is a very good one, but the issue would be to turn V8 Supercar back to this style of championship would be a very expensive task.
The only way it could work for the near future would be to have a 2 tier championship where the current V8s would compete in say Class A then have other manufacturers in a Class B which could be open as it was many years ago.
I have the feeling though that many drivers, team owners etc of the current championship as it is today would not be willing to change to fit this sort of arrangement, not to mention the amount of money that has been and would need to be spent by the teams to develop new cars, or change their current cars to fit a set of new rules and specifications.
The idea of including another manufacturer is by no means a new one. The advantage these days is that with so many control parts in the series they would need to tick all the boxes that Mr Cochrane puts ahead of them to be homologized to the specifications of the series and only at the time when Mr Cochrane is happy and all the teams are happy that this manufacturer would be allowed to race. As the last thing they would want is to introduce another manufacturer and then find their cars are faster than the current Holden’s and Ford’s. This would not only spell trouble for the administration of V8SC but the fans I’m sure wouldn’t put up with it.
Tommo, if they stick to same basic rules they have now i dont really see a problem.
Each team is allowed to build their own chassis and motors to V8SA specs. The only real difference between them now is the body panels and head/taillights.
Hey Tommo correct me if I’m wrong but I recall people booing Skaife and Richards on the podium at Bathurst because they crashed out in a rain effect race giving the lead to Dick Johnston, however the race was red flagged awarding the victory to the car leading on previous lap to the red flag (the very broken and crashed GTR) the rest is history.
Many people think the blame was leveled at the car and perhaps it polarised the situation with the all conquering GTR, but the GTR as always admired and loved. Indeed the ATTC helped in making it the legend it is today.
Back to topic, I had heard a couple of weeks ago from a friend at Nissan that they had withdrawn due to Alcohol sponsorship…….
Sorry but I find this Hypocritical………. Sure Alcohol an driving doesn’t mix particularly on the road, But hey how do they seperate the fact that the GTR at full potential on the Australian roads is just as lethal combination?? Add to that the other vehicles they have built like the Sylvia / 200sx turbo’s????
The reason the GT-R was “banned” was because of a cost issue. Australia was the last series that still ran Group A. Other countries had got rid of Group A a year or 2 before we did, including Japan. You think the Japanese banned their own car???? Group A was becoming too expensive. The reason it was becoming expensive was cars like the GT-R. Ask Fred Gibson how much it cost to run those things and he did all the development on these himself because Nismo were asking astrinomical prices for their gear and Fred could get more power out it than they could. Now imagine if the other manufacturer’s brought in cars like the GT-R imagine the costs then if Ford ran the ESCORT RS Cosworth, Subaru with a super WRX. The organisors had to come up with a cheaper formula, they considered super touring but found it wasn’t as popular as a V8 category. The fans at the time loved V8’s. The category was built on controlling costs and appealling to the majority of the fans, they had record crowds at all venues in that 1st year.
Its just the badge snobs who think that GT-R’s were banned because they were beating the local brands, noone ever complained when the BMW’s were winning in 1987 and when they were beating the GT-R’s in 1991. Anycar with AWD had a huge advantage but also a HUGE pricetag to compete. Even in the GT-Production category to run the EVO’s compared to the HSV is a lot more than you think with turbo-AWD. It was cost that killed the GT-R because to compete other manufacturers would to have spent a lot to keep up.
Maybe we need to go back to basics……. bring back historic touring cars for a full meet.
Brett these type of meetings already exist.
Take a look at Philip Island Classic, Sandown Historics, Winton Historics for those in Victoria, but there is plenty of historic racing that happens around the country, with plenty of Aussie Muscle cars going around.
Not to mention a V8 Support Category of the Touring Car Masters.
Glen,
Group A may have been eventually killed because of cost, but that was because of dodgy scruiteneering practices overseas (where ’special’ fuels and other methods of cheating were rife) However, Group A was continuing apace in Australia, with vehicles locally built to the required specs – hence the Group A Commodores and various other things such as Big Rev Kev’s Camaro. Scruiteneering in australia was very tight, with many overseas cars having to be modified back to meet their actual specs homoglated paperwork.
The GT-R may have been booed because it crashed and Dick Johnstons car was still running, but do you really think people would have booed if the victor had been Brock or Johnston? Lets face it, the local fans whinged when Robbie Francevic had the flying brick (Volvo 240T), Moffat had the RX-7s and the Skylines finally became a threat over an entire season, and particularly at Bathurst. Australian race fans, like it or not, tend to like the locally badged product (I’m not arguing that its wrong, just pointing this out) If there had been a Holden badge on the GT-R we would have been singings its praises aloud (as we did with the Ford RS500 despite its non availability)
The reason why nissan left V8 Supercars is clouded in mystery, just like the stig. Who really knows the truth?
I get my motorsport fix with Victorian State Series where there is actually passing and a bit of rubbing and great close racing.
Oh and the fact there are more than the 2 makes of taxis getting around.
I have always been a Nissan fan, so I loved seeing the GTR beat the V8s. But I admit near the end I felt it was a bit one sided. Since then My interest in the V8s has pretty much vanished. I’ll watch bits of Bathurst but couldnt’t care less about every other race. What does interest me now is the production car idea of racing. They actually have a connection to the cars anyone can buy!
The V8s have become so alien to the vehicle they resemble, how can they put a Ford or Holden symbol on them?
When you know that the winner is going to be one or the other whats the point!
There’s absolutely no need for a safety car anyway.
It’s just a gimmick that bunches the field unfairly and has often caused a deserved winner the race.
When a full course yellow is required (and I support the idea to slow cars down while debris, etc, is cleared) what’s wrong with rev limiting the cars to say 3000, or enforcing the pit lane speed limiter.
That way no-one gains an unfair catch-up advantage, and the pits can be closed to further reduce unfair advantage gained while the race pace is very low.
Who cares why Nissan left the post as safety car, its done and no amount of speculation is going to reveal the truth.
V8 Supercars should just be FPV and HSV (or any other Australian make) cars with a limit of 8 cylinders (allowing any car in their range to be used such as F6, VXR Astra, ect.), with slicks and a roll cage, thus making them actually production cars making FPV and HSV and in turn Ford and Holden to develop better cars, thus improving Australian made cars, as well as making it cheaper for all competitors as well as helping the Australian car industry.
Nissan GTR would have made Bathurst receive some credibility, instead now its the two drongo cars on the track. Oh look its Beer O’clock…
Sorry Elitist,V8 Supercars do not cater for Punto drivers.
What’s with V8 supercars only racin falcons and commodores..They should let other manufacturers compete too. I believe a stock GTR can win agaist the much more expensive australian V8 supercars in a track.
well said DiffHead, i have lost interest in the v8’s after 30 years . channel 7 broadcast although well done does not come close to network ten coverage. especially now that we have one hd the races can be live into all states. this must be a conditional in the next broadcast rights. i love my footy, love my league. but v8’s was my life i absolutely
loved v8’s racing holden and ford
Yeah, I wondered why they did not have the Skyline GT-R Pacecar at Hidden Valley. Now they have replaced it with a VE Holden Commodore. Will that be permanent?
now that nissan has gone they should a have an old xy gt or monaro or beenchys famous yellow monaro thats better then an gtr
^^^^^Why give me two negatives when I am asking a question?
@ MD – Word is their looking for a “suitable” replacement…whatever that may be.
I’m with Duck, lets have a string of classic muscles cars as pace cars.
I don’t care how many negatives I get, I just cannot get over how much of a load of crap this article, as to be expected from Car Advice.
Nissan have only just ended their relationship with V8 Supercars and because in the space of 1 week V8 Supercar haven’t got a replacement signed up the sport must be in demise with motoring enthousiasts no longer interested.
Forget the records crowd figures, forget the record TV audiances which have been going up and up in recent years. Say what you want about whether you personally like the sport or not, but you cannot deny its current success.
It’s still Australia’s premier motorsport catagory, there has never been a catagory in Australian motorsport history that has ever been as popular as V8 Supercar is, and never before has motorsport had such extensive television coverage.
Car Advice, some very simple research, for example comparing TV ratings for V8 Supercars over the last 5 years, would have shown you just how stupid your article is. But thats not the point is it? NO no, put up a contraversial article that is bound to stir up the Holden / Ford supporters to get as many comments, and therefore hits, as possible so you can sell more advertising.
At least be honest car advice, we aren’t idiots, you’ve gone from a very good and informative website into a total load of crap ever since you tried to turn the website into soemthing its not and never will be. Do some bloody research you absolute tools
Hayzel – it just couldnt. Do you have any idea how fast a V8 Supercar is? Its over 30 seconds a lap faster around Mt Panarama then an EVO 10, do you really think a GTR is 30 seconds a lap faster then an EVO 10?
you many not like ford or holden, you may not like V8’s, but don’t be daft, these are 600hp purpose built race cars that weigh half a tonne less then a GTR does. The GTR is a great road car, but don’t be silly and compare it to a purpose built race car….
also, for those who say that racing was better in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s are looking back on history with rose coloured glasses.
In those days there was only ever 2 or 3 competitive cars with the rest of the field made up of rich blokes with money and passion but minimal talent. At bathurst the fields where huge but largeley made up of once a year charlies.
Today, you realistically have at least 15 guys capable of winning races, not 2 or 3, so don’t try and tell me the racing was better in days gone by… racing has never been better
Im totally with you Richo, and by you beating me to it you just saved me plenty of time in posting.
V8SC isnt on the down, very poor article with no fact CA.
V8SC merchandise is the biggest selling sporting merchandise in Australia.
Also from when I last heard V8SC is the 3rd biggest sport in Aust. I know AFL is apparently #1, and I cant remember if NRL or Cricket was 2nd, but to be placed above either of those means things are going alright.
Production racing categories still exist. Im sick of people whinging about wanting 30 different cars and classes racing around together. The fact is that sort of racing is unpopular and has fizzled out.
Also what Richo said about racing being more competitive today is totally true.
I mean we will never again see in our life time someone win bathurst 9 times.
Not to take anything away from the great man Brocky, but he was only up against a couple of other realistic chances.
Oh and on the refusal to display alcohol signage….
WTF, who are they trying to impress???
As already said, do they feel promoting cars with speeding is any different???
What next, no advertising on TV or billboards like it went with cigatettes??
Will bottle-o’s only be allowed to display 1 facing of each liquor and keep certain ones behind the counter like tobacco???
After that little rant, I will though point out that when V8SC races in the middle east, alcohol signage is removed.
Teams such as Jim beam racing and Jack Daniels also change their scheme so it doesnt directly advertise a particular liquor
Go Andrew and Richo! I really hate it when people express their negative opinions on V8 Supercars who think they’re just production Commodores/Falcon with roll cages in them and say, i.e. “If BMW were in V8’s, they would leave those stupid taxis for dead.” But I’ve noticed that there’s been a recent out-break in those kinds of people.
Have you read a recent issue of Top Gear Australia magazine? At the beginning of the magazine, there’s a small article saying that V8 days are numbered and I’m wondering who ever wrote that silly little article has any idea what his talking about. Since it’s “Top Gear” it’s probably just a biased Eurocar purist who wouldn’t care less about the series.
Troppa,
And what did Schumacher say he drives now on last Top Gear?
Sorry what was that…..?
A camaro would look good as a pacecar….
v8 supercars is going the way of nrl and that is down, this is a tuff time for motor sports, the new generation is just interested in other things, socializing rather than following a sport. facebook , twitter , myspace they would rather sit in front of a computer and scroll through this then go to a event.
Old Car Advice reader is right when he says that the V8SC are not production cars – they aren’t. But that doesn’t stop Ford and Holden pretending that they are relevant to the cars they sell in the shop – there are people out there (quite a large number) that do not follow racing very closely, but know who won Bathurst. They remember when it used to be production based and are shocked when you tell them that it is in effect a silhouette based formula.
Yes, V8SC make nice noises (not as nice as the Jag XJ-S Gp A V12 IMHO), go fast and the racing is close, but what happens if Ford does what it did in the 80s and decides its too expensive to continue supporting racing. Holden’s parent company has been nationalised and its US export program is dead. Ford is already down to two officially supported teams.
The way the rules exist at the moment excludes any manufacturer not willing to throw a 1950s technology small block pushrod V8 engine in the front. Bring back production car racing with limited (ie none) changes allowed to the production cars. Put a cap on the purchase price of the car to avoid one off specials (hmmn, sounds like the old class system from Bathurst…) and scruiteneer properly! Add TV rights, get support from current V8 teams, and stand back and watch some real racing.