At 11am this morning the official announcement was made that Nissan Motor Co and NISMO will be entering as a manufacturer into the V8 Supercar series. There will be 4 cars run initially with two of them to be run by Kelly Racing and the other two as yet unnamed.
http://www.v8supercars.com.au/championship/newsarticle/official-nissan-to-join-v8-supercars-championship/tabid/70/newsid/12124/default.aspx
NISSAN will join the V8 Supercars Championship in 2013 and become the first new manufacturer to enter the sport under its new ‘Car of the Future’ rulebook. The news was announced today at a press conference in the River Room at Crown Casino in Melbourne.
The Japanese car giant will take on Holden and Ford in next year’s championship – the first run under new ‘Car of the Future’ rules.
Kelly Racing has signed with Nissan to become the company’s factory team and will run four cars next year from their Melbourne workshop. The team will have the full support of the giant NISMO Nissan Motorsport organisation.
- Via Bigpond and the Official V8 Supercars site, 09-02-12
Personally I think that this will be a boon for the sport, will probably help to rekindle interest from new sponsors and raise the profile of the sport overseas.
The question I suppose is where does Nissan get its 5L V8 from? The answer is actually pretty obvious - the Infiniti FX50.
Infiniti being Nissan's "premium" brand for the United States is the only market where the engine is sold. The VK50VE in road going trim puts out 390bhp and is a 90° Double Overhead Cam unit. Presumably for V8 Supercar racing, they'd throw away the DOHC heads and replace them with a SOHC pushrod configuration as per the Car of The Future rules.
Of course they need not even do that. Given the the CoTF rules allow any engine to be "debranded" and placed into any car (it's allowable for instance to put a Holden V8 into a Falcon, they could just as easily use the same racing engines as now which are usually Auroras and simply bolt them in. None of the diff, gearbox, suspension, floorpan, wiring loom, fuel tank, roll cages, firewalls, needs to be developed at all because these are mandated by the CoTF rules.
The Nissan press release doesn't reveal very much unfortunately:
http://www.nissan.com.au/webpages/information/Nissan_Enters_V8_Supercar_Championship.pdf
Looking through the current line up of cars sold by Nissan worldwide, the only suitable donor car is the J32 Teana which is sold in Australia under the Maxima nameplate. We know for certain that it will take the VK50VE because the engine bay is identical to the Infiniti FX.
Somehow I suspect that come mid-2012 because the J32 Teana is now a bit long in the tooth, Nissan will replace it with the new model and that will be the car will Kelly racing gets. As far as Nissan's marketing goes, it's a perfect arena to launch the new car.
I wouldn't mind betting that Nissan are possibly also trying to twist the arms of the JGTC to change the regulations of the Japanese GT500 series to have the car admitted there as well.
I for one welcome out new players and wish them well. Of course my offer to drive if anyone wants me still stands... anyone?
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