Chevrolet Camaro Supercar requires rule changes

HSV has stated its desire to enter the Chevrolet Camaro in the Supercars championship but says a change in technical regulations will be required before it does so.

The Ford Mustang joined Supercars in 2019 as the first two-door model ever and has cleaned up, winning six of the eight races thus far. The resulting parity debate is ongoing, but many fans are wondering why GM doesn’t respond with its respective two-door muscle car, the Chevrolet Camaro.

Picture: Chevrolet Camaro Supercar render by ssMedia

HSV now imports and converts the Chevrolet Camaro for the Australian market, but HSV Managing Director Tim Jackson told MOTOR recently: “Until there’s an appetite to change the technical rules [a Camaro Supercar] is unlikely to happen,” adding that is then “a question for Supercars, not for a manufacturer.”

Ryan Walkinshaw, director of the Walkinshaw Automotive Group and one of the team principals of the Walkinshaw Andretti United Supercar team, has been vocal with his desire to race the Camaro and expanded on his position on the recent Below the Bonnet podcast.

“We really want to do it,” said Walkinshaw. “It makes sense for me personally, I’m importing them, doing the conversion and it makes sense for me to race what I sell. It’s good marketing.”

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However, Walkinshaw explained that under the current rules, adapting the Camaro’s unique profile to the current Supercars control chassis was simply not an option: “We wouldn’t want to go and bastardise the body shape like they did with the Ford, even if it gets us an advantage.”

There are rumours that there was internal resistance at Ford to the Mustang program once it became clear what the final shape would be, however the resistance was overcome with the sentiment that “there are no ugly cars in victory lane.”

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Walkinshaw is adamant any Camaro Supercar will closely resemblance the road car: “We want to have the integrity of the original vehicle at heart, so that it looks like the road car. The profile of the Camaro is different to the Mustang and the body shape just doesn’t fit. It just looks like an Aussie Race Car, it’s shockingly bad.”

As such, any Camaro introduction is unlikely to proceed until the introduction of Supercars’ as-yet unconfirmed ’Gen3’ regulations in 2021.