It was a grey Sunday 32 years ago when Mark Skaife and Jim Richards stood on the top step of the podium. It was an emotional moment; not only had the Bathurst 1000 been cut short by a torrential storm, the drivers had learned only hours earlier that Denny Hulme, who was racing a BMW in the event, had died of a heart attack while at the wheel.
Richards and Skaife had piloted Nissan's Skyline GT-R to victory but that did not sit well with many of the fans below, having been led to believe – wrongly – that any other car in the race stood a chance of beating 'Godzilla'. As they booed, Richard retorted; “You're a pack of arseholes!”
That moment stayed with many for a long time. Certainly, it stayed with Sean Hanley, now Toyota Australia's Vice President Sales, Marketing and Franchise Operations. Last week he stated: “We often wondered if we went out and won this race, what would really happen. It was probably more risky to win it than not to play at all, back in the tribal days.”
That 1992 race was the start of what became the V8 Supercars era. The Australian V8-powered Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons were the centrepiece of what had been touring car racing and, when it was professionally commercialised in 1997, grew and continued to grow.
Its preferred backstory was a familiar one; Australian families grew up with either a Holden or a Ford in the driveway and, on the odd chance that they didn't, still followed one brand or the other. It was Red versus Blue, tribal rivalry.
Except… mostly, it really wasn't like that. While the theory played well for a few fans who accepted it, that rivalry was contrary to one of Supercars' other ambitions – to entice other manufacturers into the category. That worked for a while, with Volvo in for three years, Nissan for five and Mercedes-Benz coming in, on a purely customer basis, servicing the Erebus Motorsport team, for three.
What we know now is that while Toyota was sitting on the sidelines, looking hard at entering the fray twice (in 1999 and again in 2010), the Red vs Blue backstory was one of the reasons it stayed away – until the new-for-2023 Gen3 era.
“I have no doubt that that tribalism still exists,” says Hanley, “but there’s now room for a new player, and I think it’s timely.”
So it is that Toyota will enter Supercars in 2026, with the Walkinshaw Andretti United squad as its homologation team and leader, and another yet to be nominated squad each running two GR Supras.
For now, this news underlines that the old Supercars – Commodore and Falcon four-door sedans – is dead
This is big and game-changing news for Supercars. For all the rhetoric surrounding the Holden-Ford rivalry, the truth is that the Supercars era has seen those brands’ market shares diminish – and the Holden brand vanish entirely.
Toyota topped the Australian car market for 21 straight years, as families migrated from family sedans, which were manufactured locally, to high-riding SUVs and 'utes', which were not. Toyota dominated without any visible desire to come and play Supercars racing, preferring more low-profile programmes in the Australian Rally Championship and the one-make Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia 86 Series.
Credit where credit is due. If the new Gen3 platform is performing in some ways below expectations – parity and cost to name two still-problematic areas – Supercars deserves credit for creating a framework that finally hooked Toyota.
The timing could not be better. Not only is the category's current broadcast deal up for renewal at the end of next year, host cable and streaming service broadcaster Foxtel itself is believed to be on the market. The arrival of Toyota, Australia's biggest automotive advertiser by far, should make the category a more valuable asset – an important factor when the Gen3 cars are said to be costing as much as A$800,000 (£410,000), far beyond what was originally planned.
Toyota already has a large footprint across Australian sport, as the naming rights sponsor of the biggest football code (the AFL), in Rugby League, Cricket Australia and the national Olympic and Winter Olympic teams. Its 86 Series is already supported by a solid TV advertising spend; whichever broadcaster lands the post-2025 Supercars broadcast deal will have reason to be optimistic that commitment would expand.
There will be a lot to play out before the opening race of 2026. Ford will be losing one of its five two-car teams and will be keen to ensure that whichever team runs the second pair of Supras, it will be a defector from GM's ranks, not one of its own. In fact, Ford may just go hunting for a new partnership itself to maintain its 10-Supercar fleet. Potentially, two Chevrolet teams could be changing brands for 2026.
WAU will need to run parallel programmes for a bit over a year, one to race its Fords in 2025 and one to develop the new Toyotas. Supercars will have to work the Supra into its technical framework, to make sure that the difficulties that have hindered the development and technical parity of the Mustangs and Camaros do not extend to a third model.
All that lies in the future. For now, this news underlines that the old Supercars – Commodore and Falcon four-door sedans – is dead.
The new Supercars are sporty two-door Camaros, Mustangs and, soon, Supras; a kind of Down Under version of GT3. ‘Win on Sunday’ is still a valid mantra but the vehicles the brands will be trying to Sell on Monday now bear no resemblance to those on the track. Times change, and Supercars has done just that – hopefully for the better.
