A new class has been opened up for cars spanning the beginning of the five-litre touring car era to the end of Project Blueprint ahead of the 2013 V8 Supercars season.

Those cars have been invited to compete alongside the Innovation Race Cars/MARC cars and pre-2019 GT3 cars in a new-for-2025 category.

It was initially launched as a standalone series for IRC/MARC hardware, before being opened up first to the older GT cars, and now to pre-COTF Supercars.

The invitation gives pre-COTF cars a new home after the V8 Touring Car Series, which had been running on the SpeedSeries bill, was put on ice early last year.

The caveat for this new class is that there needs to be at least four cars entered for Round 1 at Winton on February 28-March 2.

“After releasing the GT3 invitation, several V8 Touring Car drivers wondered if they could join our field,” said IRC category manager Danny Stutterd.

“After consultation with several people, including Matt Stone, we’ve agreed that it could be a possibility, and we’re fielding interest for that. We certainly want to have at least four or five for the start.

“From all indications the V8 Touring Car class will grow dramatically over the year. We are inquiring as to those who may want to come and join us and talk to us about the regulations.”

While parity measures are being adopted to equalise IRC/MARC and GT3 cars, the requirement for the touring cars will be to qualify within 10 seconds of the outright pole position time.

All three classes will compete for their own titles.

“What I’m doing is opening it up to the right clientele, the right sort of drivers for our series that want good, clean, and fast racing,” Stutterd said.

“V8 Touring Cars have obviously got a huge following, so why not be inclusive to those who we think have been left out in the wilderness.

“Part of our deal at IRC is to include those cars, but make sure it’s all a good parity of racing, so come and join us. If we have four or five entered for Round 1 you will definitely see them on the grid.

“It’ll great to see old V8 touring cars in their original liveries, out there running within a couple of seconds of IRC and older-spec GT3 cars, it’ll be quite a spectacle.”

Should this class get the required numbers it would leave pre-Gen2 COTF cars as the remaining era without a viable place to race after Super3 was axed at the end of last year.

They are technically eligible for Super2, however the dominance of the Gen2 cars has effectively run them out of the series.