If you was in charge of TOCA... what would you change?

[clubracing]

Skodapondy said:

The elephant in the room is the SUV. I would hazard a guess that a large portion of spectators arrive in them at the circuits.

Alan Gow was asked about this earlier this year and said; “If you want to go and run a Range Rover Evoque, you can. We don’t say in our regulations it has to be a saloon car. We have the minimum dimensions of the car, and we have the subframes you can bolt on – you can make a BTCC car out of SUVs and crossovers. If a team or a manufacturer wants to introduce that, bring it on. That’s exactly why these regulations were designed the way they were.”

https://www.autosport.com/btcc/news/why-the-btcc-i...

It's not really what I'd want to see racing, but that's clearly where the majority of manufacturers and the car buying public are these days. We've seen the Ford Puma, Citroen C3, and Mini Countryman competing in the WRC, and they look fairly good in tarmac spec, so I can see it working in BTCC.

[GlobalRacer]

Thorney Motorsport were going to do one years ago but Range Rover squashed it.

Thorney Motorsport said:

I thought it would be nice to share a few ideas we had in the process, some hair brained some less so. One idea we had was to run a Range Rover Evoque, with a monocoque chassis, composite boot and bonnet, common roofline for 2 door and 4 door it was the perfect donor car for the NGTC rules (remember the suspension mounting points are all located on the common subframes) and we thought it looked stunning but sadly was not to be.

Sponsors were keen and had the budget but JLR said no – it would interfere with their feminine lead marketing strategy so the idea is destined to stay a mock up. They couldn’t stop us as such but made it very clear that we shouldn’t pursue the idea and I’m not about to pick a fight with JLR!

[Sandpit Steve]

GlobalRacer said:

Thorney Motorsport were going to do one years ago but Range Rover squashed it.

Thorney Motorsport said:

I thought it would be nice to share a few ideas we had in the process, some hair brained some less so. One idea we had was to run a Range Rover Evoque, with a monocoque chassis, composite boot and bonnet, common roofline for 2 door and 4 door it was the perfect donor car for the NGTC rules (remember the suspension mounting points are all located on the common subframes) and we thought it looked stunning but sadly was not to be.

Sponsors were keen and had the budget but JLR said no – it would interfere with their feminine lead marketing strategy so the idea is destined to stay a mock up. They couldn’t stop us as such but made it very clear that we shouldn’t pursue the idea and I’m not about to pick a fight with JLR!

Ouch at that sexist drivel from JLR. They could instead have used women drivers in the series and for their marketing. In case they hadn’t noticed, women in motorsport is something of an untapped market!

[Milkyway]

Whatever happened to that Espace series...
(NB: Other people carriers were available).

[Speed Badger]

Alternative future time - all cars are silhouettes, some hatchback, some saloon, some SUV, all designed with the same length, width and height so there are no real discernible differences in areo and handling performance. Cars are run by private teams such as WSR, with 2-3 cars in each team, all with identical liveries.

Now the kicker - every team is sponsored by a manufacturer and running in full vibrant manufacturer liveries. The BTCC is no longer about car makers selling cars - the old win on Sunday, sell on Monday adage. But, I bet they would still love coming out on top in a big battle against their rivals - seeing a couple of fully liveried up Fords coming out on top against Renaults or BMW etc would be excellent visuals for a fraction of the cost of running a full manufacturer program.

Also, on the topic of turning to SUVs, in terms of vehicles that have more relevance to today's mainstream buyers - the Brazilian stock car championship is changing to SUVs for the 2025 championship:

https://autoesporte.globo.com/curiosidades/noticia...

Edited by Speed Badger on Friday 21st June 10:31

[GlobalRacer]

Speed Badger said:

Alternative future time - all cars are silhouettes, some hatchback, some saloon, some SUV, all designed with the same length, width and height so there are no real discernible differences in areo and handling performance. Cars are run by private teams such as WSR, with 2-3 cars in each team, all with identical liveries.

Now the kicker - every team is sponsored by a manufacturer and running in full vibrant manufacturer liveries. The BTCC is no longer about car makers selling cars - the old win on Sunday, sell on Monday adage. But, I bet they would still love coming out on top in a big battle against their rivals - seeing a couple of fully liveried up Fords coming out on top against Renaults or BMW etc would be excellent visuals for a fraction of the cost of running a full manufacturer program. ]

Would they? Not really that much different to what they've done in Australia and manufacturers have no real interest in it. I'm far from convinced that most mainstream manufacturers are interested in anything outside of the big international series.