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Nissan wants downsized turbos for V8 Supercars championship

Nissan says the next-iteration of the V8 Supercars Championship would be better suited with small-capacity turbos rather than V8 engines.


The V8 Supercar Championship will run for another two years in its current technical format before it gets a complete overhaul in 2017, with manufacturers such as Hyundai and Lexus showing a great deal of interest in joining the new “Supercars” Championship.

Mid this week V8 Supercars is set to unveil a new look with less emphasis on the V8 aspect of the championship as it gears up to drop the V8 component completely by 2017.

According to Darren Cox, Nismo’s global head of brand marketing and sales, the V8 supercars needs to be more encouraging of new brands and ditch the V8 requirement.

Australia has got to be at a crossroads with the Holden and Ford situation locally” Cox told CarAdvice at yesterday’s Nismo festival in Japan.

“You got to welcome with open arms people like Volvo and Nissan and others to come in to the motorsport and that means not having a V8 engine, because how many people have a V8 engine? Ours is out of a truck in the U.S!”

Cox is coy regarding what car Nissan will run in the next-generation championship, acknowledging that it needs to be reflective of Nissan’s marketing requirements.

“We would love, of course, to go racing in the Gozilla [Nissan GT-R], we already invest in that car globally in terms of development but we also got to respect the fact that Supercars [championship] has got heritage and we should listen to the other manufacturers.”

The need for more manufacturers to join the series all comes down to creating a more realistic and reflective series in terms of rules and regulations.

“It should be a championship that the most brands as possible can come in and compete in. So in other words what the technology and the rules are written around should be something that a number of manufacturers can go into to. As you hear motorsport is under pressure, so we need to make sure it’s relevant to the marketing side and the consumer, not just what us racers want to go and do, we need to sell cars at the end of the day.”

Nismo says the decision on what rules should come in to play for 2017 should not be made without extensive consultation with all parties that may be interested in joining the series.

“I think the decision as big as which direction the rules are going in should be a conversation between everybody. That doesn’t mean just the teams and organisers, it should be the brands that are interested [in joining] and are already in the championship and what works from a marketing point of view.”

Asked what type of engine setup Nissan would like to run from 2017, Cox hinted that it would make sense to run something like the current Nissan Altima but with a GT-R engine instead of the V8 from the Patrol.

“It has to be something that is relevant in terms of the road cars and in terms of the technology so that probably means a downsized turbo.”

More news is expected from the V8 Supercars championship on Wednesday.

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