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V8 Supercars has an identity crisis. As it looks to the future and the possibility of a move away from the V8 engine platform to stay relevant to a changing automotive industry, its branding will come under the spotlight.
CEO James Warburton is currently preparing a white paper for the technical regulations of the series from 2017 and beyond, post-Holden and Ford local production and the demise of V8-powered Commodores and Falcons.
Everything will be up for debate, according to Warburton, including body shapes in order to allow coupes such as the Ford Mustang to race in the series. There also could be a possible engine rethink that includes alternatives to V8 power.
Manufacturers potentially interested in or new to the series have struggled to comply with the V8 engine requirements. Nissan and Volvo don’t sell the road-going versions of their V8 Supercars with V8 engines, having been forced to develop disused or other power plants to go racing.
So if V8 Supercars looks to smaller capacity, more efficient and market relevant engines, it will need a name change; a process that could happen next year according to reports this week – accelerating a move away from the title introduced in 1997.
The rush for a new title comes as V8 Supercars gets to set to change media partners in 2015, with Foxtel and Channel Ten promising increased coverage in a deal significantly up from a financial perspective than the current arrangement.
Name changes are never ideal, as you lose brand traction and risk confusing the market with something too far removed from what the series is currently known as. Bearing that in mind, V8 Supercars has two options.
The first option is a return to the pre-1997 Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC), or the simply Australian Touring Cars (ATC), the official award handed out to the championship-winning driver.
Other touring car categories haven’t deviated from their official titles – British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing), Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM, German Touring Car Masters) and so on.
It may not have the vitality of V8 Supercars but it keeps things simple with a traditional name that will be relevant to the technical package with or without V8 engines.
The second option seems the most obvious and easiest, dropping the V8 and simply calling it Supercars or a variation of that name.
More vibrant than the Australian Touring Car Championship, Supercars is less of a departure from the current title and is still relevant, considering the cars are racing bred with the appearance of their road-going versions.
Supercars would also be an easier pill to swallow for hardcore fans, who will no doubt bemoan the loss of V8 engines.
But V8 Supercars needs to tread very carefully as it looks to rework its technical package and branding. Adapting to a new-look Australian automotive industry may be key to secure manufacturer support, but a move away from its current and well-liked package could alienate the hardcore fans.
This was the problem with the V8 Supercars name and insistence on the Ford versus Holden-only platform – it failed to safeguard the future of the series by focusing so heavily on two aspects that could change.
As we’ve seen in the last two seasons, new manufacturers have been welcomed and added to the spectacle. Changing the technical package and name of the series may be a harder sell…