The Repco Supercars championship is about to get underway with the 2025 season roaring into action at the Sydney 500 at Sydney Motorsport Park.
With Supercars Travel joining forces with Supercars some of you may be thinking, isn’t it V8 Supercars? Why just Supercars? Are they not V8s anymore?
So, we thought we would look back on the history of Supercars and why it is now just ‘Supercars’.
Originally called the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1960, Alfa Romeo, Volvo, Jaguar, Ford, BMW, Nissan, Holden, and Mitsubishi competed from the start until 1992.
1993 saw a massive shift for the category with new frameworks seeing all but Ford and Holden leave the competition, kickstarting one of the most iconic rivalries in Australian sporting history.
The ATCC adopts the framework of rules that later lead to the V8 Supercar category. With winged, five-liter, V8-powered Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons.
1997 sees the V8 Supercars moniker take over but the Australian Touring Car Championship name remains.
In 1999, Shell signed on to be the first naming rights sponsor of the Supercars championship. In 2002, the category was renamed the V8 Supercar Championship Series.
With the championship becoming more internationally renowned including races in Abu Dhabi, New Zealand, Bahrain, and China, in 2011 it was renamed the International V8 Supercars Championship.
New regulations were brought into the series in 2013 with Nissan and Mercedes joining the championship as the ‘car of the future’ competes in its first season. The second version of the car of the future was introduced in 2018.
In 2016 Virgin signed on as a naming rights partner with the championship renamed the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship before Repco signs in 2021.
2022 was the final season of ‘Gen 2’ as Holden finished up and won its final-ever race with Broc Feeney taking home a win in Adelaide.
In 2023 came the long-awaited introduction of Gen3, the biggest revision to Supercars’ technical regulations in a generation. With Holden gone, Chevrolet returned with its new Camaro, with Ford debuting its seventh-generation Mustang.
All cars currently use either a 5.4L or 5.7L naturally aspirated V8 engine.
So yes, it is still ‘V8 Supercars’ and will be for the foreseeable future.
You can be at all races this year with Supercars Travel and if you can't be there you can catch them all on TV.
With all rounds & races of every session of the Repco Supercars Championship is broadcast live in high definition on Foxtel within Australia or on free-to-air with The Seven Network broadcasting live races from Darwin, Townsville, Bathurst, Gold Coast and Adelaide.
For more information on Supercars Travel please visit: Supercars Travel