BTCC Team for Next Year

[Fordman]

A Bloke at work has just pulled up in a .....wait for it......

Skoda Octavia VTR, Black, spoilers the lot, and my god, it looks absolutly brill. If Proton are in the BTCC, why not Skoda with the Octavia, and Seat with the Leon

Really if you look at it, the BTCC has the potential to be big, very big:

2 x Astras
2 x MG
2 x Leon
2 x Octavia's
2 x Focies ( Ford Focus )
2 x Lexus
2 x Alfa's
2 x Peugeots
2 x Volvos

The list goes on and on. Then they can make the Production cars there own championship and a feeder championship for the BTCC, the winner, winning a drive in works team.

Oh well, if only I was on the board.

[Peugeot #1]

I think that list is way off the mark. Where are the Honda's and Protons???!?
And I suspect Indie teams may buy this year Astra's or Honda's aswell. So there's going to be 25-30 Tourers next year!

[Fordman]

As it states " The list goes on and on" I got bored of typing. If it goes that way, we might as well drop the BTCC and have the Astra Championship, like the Clio Cup

[Peugeot #1]

Yeah, I dought we will have all Astras you know!

[kmchow]

I thought indies that the used car pricies were still too high? OTOH, I guess it's all part of the bargaining process?

[touringlegend]

Yes, they thought they were too high, though, as Triple 8 was eager to point out..they sold the Astras for around £90,000 - £30,000 less that the limit of what a team can charge for a BTC Touring Car.

[Sherman]

I hear Total Motorsport will be entering 47 Lexus's and 2 Ferrari's, although they havent got the money for them, and they will be appearing halfway through the season.....possibly, depending on whether they can be arsed to make them.....

£90,000 for an Astra? Bargain...ill just get out the chequebook....oh wait, id better sell the house first!

[kmchow]

Hmmm, 90K GBP sounds like it's a bargain. But how does that depreciation compare in relation to a ST car? A ST car is rumored to cost about a 150-200K GBP when new? How much did a used one year old, ST car cost? What kind of depreciation did it incur? I guess to be precise, we should use Vauxhall as a measurement gauge.

But upon closer inspection, I thought a current BTC car costs about half the cost of a ST car? So assuming 200K GBP for a new ST car, a BTC car should cost 100K GBP. So a used one should sell for less than 90K GBP? 'Cause 90K GBP represents only a 10% depreciation?

Do or should racecars depreciate better or worse than regular street cars? I guess brand matters? Certainly the distance used can't???

[runnyhunny]

Super Touring cars were not generally very good once they were a year old. All the manufacturers worked so hard on the 'current' cars, that the 'cast offs' couldn't keep up. The only exception that springs to mind is the situation with Matt Neal in 1999 and 2000.

By contrast, the 2001 Astra and ZS cars seem to be going reasonably well. The 406 Coupes could have been said to be achieving the same, but the others have moved on a touch too far, and it's possible that the 406 Coupe wasn't the right car to use from day one.

[Speedworx]

They must not make the production a seperate class. They must always be together. Without the production cars in the same race, it wouldn't be that good.

[BootsOntheSide]

If the current manufacturers stay and some of this year's cars are bought by privateers, there won't be room on the grids of the Production class as well. Remember the problems at Knockhill where there were originally 3 more entries than grid slots. Next year even the bigger tracks could struggle to fit all the cars. We're thinking maybe 14 works cars and 10 indies next year, which doesn't leave any real room.

[Surtees]

Originally posted by Fordman
Skoda Octavia VTR, Black, spoilers the lot, and my god, it looks absolutly brill. If Proton are in the BTCC, why not Skoda with the Octavia, and Seat with the Leon

Don't manufacturers enter cars in the BTCC if they want to promote the brands? Surely they don't just do it for fun (expensive fun!). Won't it depend on the marketing strategy of the bigwigs as to whether they want to go down that lane of brand publicity? I do agree that it'd be nice to see the Astras diluted a bit though!

Ford and their Focus seem to be more rally-orientated rather than roundy roundy racing, I think I'd die laughing if I saw a Focus on the grid, I'd expect to see Asda bags and a baby seat in the back! Somehow the Focus seems to get away with being a hard @rsed rally car though.

As for the Proddy class being seperated, there was a posting about this a while back wasn't there? When people feared that sponsors would desert the series due to less exposure, and the Proddies would be relegated to yet another saloon car race.....and teams dropping out due to lack of funding?

And if the prize was a "works drive" then all the existing works drivers would be sh1tting themselves because one of them would have to move over to make room for the prizewinner?

[kmchow]

Fullerton wrote:

>Somehow the Focus seems to get away with being a hard @rsed rally car though.

OTOH, if the Focus was a sedan, I could respect it more. But how much development and chassis settings can be carried over from the hatchback to sedan?

[Eddie_harasym]

Skoda and Seat?

Same group therfore not a possiblilty me thinks.

Seat will take up touring but, I'm pretty sure it will be ETCC.

[touringlegend]

Skoda recently launched their Superb model, that's an "executive" car, so perhaps they'd be looking to change the image. But if I was Skoda's bosses I'd be asking the question..does the WRC get ignored in the UK?

I know Skoda (or VAG) have never thrown too much money at the WRC programme though...

[Eddie_harasym]

Originally posted by touringlegend


I know Skoda (or VAG) have never thrown too much money at the WRC programme though...

Yep that is true.

Still I think the coverage on C4 has greatly improved the UK awareness.

[sceptic]

Skoda and Seat are both brands which they want to use in rallying, VW will be reserved for one-make saloon car racing and audi do touring cars.

The same is true at the Ford group: They use Proton and Volvo for touring cars, Ford for rallying and Jaguar and Cosworth for F1.

...and Renault use the Citroen brand for rallying and the Renault brand for circuit racing.

[touringlegend]

er....Proton owned by Ford?

Since when were Renault/Citroen associated? It's Peugeot & Citroen and they're both in the WRC. Maybe I'm wrong, please say if I am...

[MGF]

You are.... no just kidding.

Ford own Volvo, Lincoln, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Mazda There's probably more but I can't remember them.

[kmchow]

Proton is still independent as far I know? They're using the ex-Mitsubishi Colt platform for their cars. I thought they also finally released a heavily self designed or still heavily modified Mitsubishi engine as well?

[Reido Rules]

2 things can people stop pinning hopes on Ford and Lexus, Ford really aren't interested and aren't afraid to express that opinion. Lexus, Toyota just don't seem to want to push another venture through at the mo. and TMSR though will probs make a wierd prediction for 2003 which they have no chance of satisfying, because lets face it they want a hat-rick of looking stupid.

C4's WRC coverage does pick up over a million more viwers than the BTCC on a bad day and the audience is growing all the time, so if they have a choice WRC is the better market place.

[Jukebox]

Originally posted by touringlegend
er....Proton owned by Ford?

This is not true and never gonna happen because of nationalist reasons. Although GM tried to purchase some of shares backthen when proton was in trouble but petronas were given the priority and later proton bought back the shares from petronas.

[Jukebox]

Originally posted by kmchow
Proton is still independent as far I know? They're using the ex-Mitsubishi Colt platform for their cars. I thought they also finally released a heavily self designed or still heavily modified Mitsubishi engine as well?

Next year they will start producing cars based on their own campro engines and uses them for their btcc entries.

[Reido Rules]

Proton has basically restarted in the last 3years, as it is now more independant and more highly funded, and now it's found it's feet as a manufacturer, it will now look at developing it's own engines at the highest possible standard.

However Ford do also now own Daewoo, so the Blue Oval may enter vis the Korean marque which needs a boost to it's image and a kick start in sales.

But it will be hard for ford to finance a BTCC team as the european budget is being blown on F1 and the UK budget in Rallying, and the world wide budget is also in F1 and CART and with the huge task of supplying the full CART series next year, the Ford Cosworth factory will be extremely busy and the European arm pushed for motorsport cash.

[runnyhunny]

Ford do not own Daewoo. General Motors (who also own Opel/Vauxhall) own Daewoo.

Over the next few years, the current Daewoo cars will be replaced with new part-Vauxhall cars. This is the same kind of thing that goes on in similar situations (e.g. Ford/Jaguar, WV/Seat etc.).