When I think of the best versions of touring car racing, the first couple that come to mind are the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM), and various iterations of World Challenge. But there are way more varieties out there, especially from the other States, aka a fellow ex-British colony: Australia.
Australians have always triumphed in touring car racing. The V8 Supercars are crowd favorites, but as Blend Line TV on YouTube demonstrates, there are way more versions of Aussie racing series out there. The channel features a variety of thrilling track footage, most of which focuses on some form of Australian touring car racing or the platforms involved, like the legendary Holden Commodore.
How freaking cool is this? A Subaru WRX, Toyota AE86, and Holden Monaro all duking it out in tight quarters, ripping around the track with reckless abandon. What else would a racing fan need? It’s a versatile assortment of cars, but the combination of different powertrains and drivetrains makes for uniquely interesting racing.
That’s just one of many solid examples, though. Blend Line TV serves as a great informational primer for the various generations of the beloved-by-all-Aussies Commodore:
This short video shows footage of a track day instead of a wheel-to-wheel race, but the point is made. I think we can all agree that all V8 Commodores should be classified as Fucking Cool As Hell.
This one in particular is a VT, which is part of series of codes used to identify various sub-generations of Commodore. It’s absolutely crucial to signify the sub-generation first, and then proceed with explaining why it’s so rad. Adding to the car’s credentials, the early VL Commodore could be had from the factory with various iterations of Nissan RB straight-six engines, which means monster RB26 swaps are possible.
The Series II VT (VT II) SS was powered by the General Motors (GM) LS1 V8 and resembled our fifth-gen Pontiac GTO. The GTO was actually a rebadged Holden Monaro, but you can see similarities in their styling, particularly on the front end. The above video appears to show a VT SS. This thing looks right at home on Australia’s most famous stretch of racing tarmac, the Mount Panorama Circuit of Bathurst.
In a different video, a late-year VE Commodore in a friggin’ rally stage, sliding around and singing the song of its hoon-loving people:
The VT II Commodore SS is also the perfect candidate for importing to the U.S.A. someday, but it came out in 1999, so it’ll be awhile before that’s possible. Let’s hope nice examples are still around when the time comes.
This last video highlights a much different type of engine. Aussies love rotaries, and it looks like an ex-IMSA 20B-powered RX-8 made its way down there to punish some pavement. There’s only one issue: It’s too quiet!
What to read next:
- Kevin Williams writes why his EV road trips around the midwest sucked, largely due to chargers and infrastructure.
- Oops! Forza Horizon 5 misnamed an obscure Chinese car for seemingly no reason.
- This overlooked Ford could be a focal point for used Blue Oval tuning.
- Not good: It looks like NYC traffic cameras can bust you for exhaust noise now.
- Project i-MiEV update: I broke a piece of plastic, and now I have to remove a 500-pound battery.
- We have extremely pedantic observations about gauge clusters to discuss.
- To Ohio kids, LeBron James’ Hummer H2 was uniquely inspiring.
