Tickford Racing CEO Tim Edwards has confirmed he’s visited both Dick Johnson Racing and Triple Eight Race Engineering to check up on Gen3 progress.
Tickford will campaign the new-look Ford Mustangs when Gen3 debuts – at this stage slated for August 2022 at Sydney Motorsport Park – while those siding with General Motors will run Chevrolet Camaros.
Supercars is also holding talks with a European manufacturer to bring a third marque to the category, but not until at least 2023.
With DJR and Triple Eight the designated Ford and General Motors homologation squads, respectively, Edwards has made a point of checking in on the project.
“Between the two Townsvilles, I went with a couple of my engineers and Matty [Roberts], my team manager, down to DJR to have a look at their prototype and build, and I was at Triple Eight about four weeks before that looking at their prototype and build,” Edwards told the Parked Up podcast.
“Every time you go, there’s more parts that have arrived and more of it going together so it’s good, just to keep tabs on it.
“There’s still a huge amount of work to be done on it, but it’s a sexy looking race car.
“That’s the first tick in the box. It will sound good and it will look good, no doubt… this is a huge project and generally everybody underestimates the size of the project and that’s certainly in my opinion what’s happened here.
“It is a completely new car with, literally the transaxle is one thing that swaps across, but even that is not straightforward because if you’re putting assisted shift on it, that whole thing has got to be morphed onto the top of the transaxle as well.
“So it is a completely new car, so it’s an enormous project.”
Closer racing and a more affordable product have been two core pillars of the Gen3 project.
Edwards admits he’s sceptical of the new cars actually being cheaper, but is adamant they’ll satisfy fans in terms of appearance and overtaking ability.
“Unfortunately, when anyone talks about cost containment, I generally laugh because it just doesn’t happen,” he said.
“If we can keep costs similar to what they are now, then I think that will be the outcome from a dollars point of view.
“But what we have got is a bloody good looking race car that on the surface should be a better race car as well because… when you’re on Conrod fanging along behind someone, you should be able to get in the tow and actually use that to get past them.
“At the moment, you all know that you sit behind someone for more than 30 seconds and you overheat the front tyres and the whole rhetoric that goes with that.
“We want to improve our racing, and that’s not to say it is broken at the moment – we still put on a fantastic show at the moment – but if we can make it better and make even more overtaking, then that’s a big win.”
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