It’s the V8 Supercar secret no one really wants you to know. The cars that will tackle Sunday’s Bathurst 1000 are further away than ever from the Holdens and Fords you drive.

In fact, under the manufacturers’ badges and panels, all V8 Supercars which race at Bathurst use many of the same parts, making it near impossible to really tell a racing Commodore from a Falcon.

For starters, all the cars have between 60 to 80 millimetres cut from the length of their chassis to meet the sport’s technical regulations.

And both Holdens and Fords share the same clutches, gearboxes, wheels, tyres and engine control systems, as well as similar suspensions.

“The things that make the cars go faster are fairly well controlled,” Ford driver Steven Johnson said.

“They all look fairly similar – look the same outside as the road car.

“But when then you look inside the cockpit layout, everyone’s got their own spin on what they want.”

Forget dual airbags, space for a family and an iPod-ready four-speaker stereo.

It’s space-age dashboards, an array of switches, and a giant rollcage inside to protect from high-speed crashes.

All of this comes at a far higher cost than your $30,000 big Aussie six with the minor sting of dealer delivery.

Johnson estimates the two Jim Beam Racing cars competing at Bathurst are worth around $700,000 landed – making it a multi-million exercise to run a team through the V8 championship.

Those costs continue to spiral, forcing V8 bosses to look at capping costs by introducing a back-to-basics car costing no more than $250,000 to build from scratch.

V8 Supercar boss Tony Cochrane suggests that may be introduced as soon as 2011, though 2012 is considered the more likely option.

There is also the hope of eventually bringing an extra manufacturer or two into the series to break the Holden-Ford duopoly.

© AAP 2012

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