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NEW CAMARO HOPE

New Camaro Hope

By Bruce Williams

New Camaro Hope

New Camaro Hope

SUPERCARS is seriously investigating changing the chassis rules to accommodate low-line coupes like the Chevrolet Camaro and even GT-style two-seaters to ensure the long-term future of manufacturer involvement.

By MARK FOGARTY

As previously revealed by AUTO ACTION, Supercars is actively investigating reducing the roll cage height and other dimensional changes to make it easier to adapt two-door body shapes.

Big changes are in the works for an evolutionary upgrade of the existing Gen2 New Generation technical and eligibility rules – dubbed Next Generation – as soon as 2021.

Behind the scenes, Walkinshaw Andretti United is maintaining its campaign to gain roll hoop height concessions to allow the Camaro’s low roofline to fit over the Supercars chassis without distorting the look of the road car.

Ford had to adapt the body shape of the Mustang to the existing rules, resulting in the racer’s awkward proportions.

WAU and road car stablemate HSV are particularly keen to field a Camaro-look Supercar against the Mustang following confirmation that the range-topping ZL1 model will be sold in Australia for the middle of this year.

While he described the Camaro racer project as “dormant”, WAU and HSV chief Ryan Walkinshaw confirmed that the project was ready to be revived if Supercars approved a change.

“From what I understand, there’s an activate investigation going on and we’re obviously pushing that because we’d like to have that door opened for us,” Walkinshaw said. “We’ve been really clear that our ambitions are to race a Camaro in Supercars, but currently with the chassis and the roll hoop where it is, we’d have to bastardise the aesthetics of the car so much, as we’ve seen with the Mustang.

“For us as the people who are bringing the Camaro in with Holden, we have a significant incentive to ensure that the race car represents the aesthetic integrity of the road car.

“So if and when Supercars changes the roll hoop and changes the chassis to allow more two-door exciting products into the category, we’ll be exploring that opportunity again very quickly.”

Supercars chief executive Sean Seamer revealed that computer studies were underway to assess adapting the chassis to a wider variety of body shapes.

“The process that we’re going through right now is trying to make sure we that have enduring market relevance and that we have the most opportunity for a number of different marques,” Seamer said. “We have about 20 different CAD files that the technical department’s working through and they’re literally dropping those CAD files on top of the chassis and seeing what changes would need to be made to accommodate the maximum number of vehicles.

“This is a process that we’re doing some work on right now, but we really need to take it back to our OE manufacturer partners to get their feedback on what their product road maps look like. So we’re just doing a bit of grunt work right now to understand what the opportunities might be and then we can take that back to the OEMs and get their feedback, and make sure that what we’re looking at doing has longevity.

“We want to measure twice and cut once.”

Seamer sees the NASCAR-style manufacturers’ council he has proposed as playing a crucial role in developing the Next Generation rules, which are currently scheduled for introduction in 2022, but could be brought forward to ’21 if the teams agree.

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