the group 5/GTX/GTO regulations produced some of the most mental, coolest, and exciting race cars of all time. whether it’s the porsche 935, the nissan super silhouettes, or the zak speed capri.
manufacturers from britain, germany, italy, america, japan, and more all competed for glory. but there’s an island down under the equator line that never made it’s way in. australia.
however, that was almost completely different.
in the late 70s, holden released the first generation commodore, and the holden dealer team (holdens factory race team in local touring car racing) hatched a plan to take the commodore and race it at le mans under FIA group 5 regulations. here are photographs of a prototype in production.
and here’s some renderings of how the car would have looked finished
the car featured extreme development work, with intense aerodynamic research on the cars ground effects aero system, the same system used on 70s formula 1 cars.
power would come from the same motor used in the holden touring cars, a 5 litre, 400 horsepower V8. while it would have been down on power compared to the competition, it’s lack of a rear wing, due to the ingenious ground effects aero, would mean the holden’s drag coefficient would be extremely low.
sadly, the project never eventuated. the project lacked funding from holden’s parent company general motors, and it faded in to immense obscurity until this youtuber uncovered it after 40 years.
this car never raced, and never had a chance to show what it could do, a chance for australia to show off it’s motorsport expertise on the world stage, dashed by bean counters.
the new forza motorsport should allow cars like this to shine.
