Mercedes Had a V8 Supercar. 

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I always saw the V8 Supercars as the perfect example of Australian Manufacturers chickening out and banning the competition, rather than taking them on. It's very creation was a response to the R32's domination in Group A. "Should we make a car that can beat the GTR? Nah, let's just make it illegal instead." And in the end of the day, V8 Supercars suffered the same fate of the Ozzy car industry. How fitting.

Its weird how V8 Supercars is still so insistent at keeping the whole "GM vs Ford" thing alive when I'm pretty sure most fans nowadays couldn't care less ever since Australian built cars got axed.

Is that horsepower limit on “outsiders” a norm in motorsport? Seems like such an odd rule that doesnt promote competition

It's a real pity that Erebus/Mercedes, Nissan, and Volvo weren't able to compete on a level playing field. I mean, I get it, those three manufacturers had the capability to run much higher tech than Holden and the local Ford products so they had to make it fair, but the rules were so skewed in favour of the local brands it was essentially impossible for them to compete. The Volvo was in the mix for a short while, but that was more due to exceptional ability of the driver (Scott McLaughlin) than the car really. Both Mercedes and Nissan had some gun drivers (Maro Engel, Will Davison, Rick Kelly, Tim Slade, Lee Holdsworth, among others) but they never got near the front most of the time. It ultimately led to the withdrawal of all three, so in the end no one gained except those that were already winning. I believe WAU (Ryan Walkinshaw particularly) tried pretty hard to get another manufacturer interested with the introduction of Gen3 but sadly it came to nothing. Apparently he talked to a few people but couldn't get anything off the ground, probably for the same reasons Mercedes originally had reservations I'd guess, and from seeing what happened to those who had previously failed to compete successfully.

Do the V8SC Nissan Altima next !

19:08 shoutout to the AU I Falcon ute from 1998 being used as a recovery car, despite being 15 years old by this point

The Erebus E63 5.0l had Drive by Wire and two Butterfly valve intakes instead of the 8 throttle bodies since it was a direct lift from the GT3 program. Those proved to be highly unreliable in its installation alongside the electric power steering. Also, the engines had to be flown back to Germany for servicing, but Erebus slowly shifted to a traditional 8 stack ITB, ditched the drive by wire and electric power steering and Ross Stone insisted on servicing the engines at the shop for faster turn around. So they had a lot of things going against them from the start.

Never forget the GRM Volvo S60.

Failed Racers uploads -> my day is saved It's also great to see you improving in audio quality etc., keep up the great work!

I feel like the higher-ups in Supercars wanted to have their cake and eat it when it came to new manufacturers and it backfired. Like sure, they welcomed new OEMs but still wanted Ford and Holden to be the centre of the show and it therefore didn't feel like Nissan, Volvo and Erebus/Mercedes were competing on equal terms, so it's not surprising they all left in relatively short order. As an aside, Ford in the COTF era feel like underdogs to some extent against Holden, with only six cars on the grid for most of it from FPR, their various satellites and DJR. At the same time, all three manufacturers only had one team representing them, and none of them had top teams. Erebus was essentially being rebuilt from the ground up from the old Stone Brothers squad while Kelly Racing (Nissan) and Garry Rogers Motorsport (Volvo) had winning pedigree but at this point in time tended to be in the midfield. Imagine how things might've gone if one of them had partnered with someone like Triple Eight for instance.

The current gen Supercars actually facilitating new manufacturers to join since iirc they allowed many body styles.

10:25 Fantastic mock German accent. It both sounds German enough to sell the effect, while clearly being a mock accent, selling the joke.

2:43 car of the future... future, tomorrow... CAR OF TOMORROW

Used to watch V8 Supercars so much when I was a kid. The good old Holden Vs Ford as well as Nissan, Mercedes and Volvo joining in. Doesn’t feel the same anymore watching V8 Supercars now that it’s just Chevys and Mustangs

As someone outside of Australia, it's weird to hear the Supercars series having such a reputation locally. Maybe the standards in the states are just that low, but the moment you can put the dirt tires away, make right turns, AND drive with windshield wipers on without being told when you need to put on different tires has always put a series squarely in the territory of proper touring car racing. That's sophisticated stuff. For as much as the deck was stacked against them though, seeing those AMGs steal a win in every season they competed really must be cathartic for someone who signed off on that project.

Such a shame they gimped the mighty M159 like that... destroked to 5.0L, down on power and RPMs! Absolutely terrible!

I'm from Argentina, it's funny how being so far away each country we have the same issue, here the most popular series is Turismo Carretera, until last year we used national production cars and very popular like Ford Falcon (not the australian Falcon), Chevy, Dodge GTX and IKA Torino, there are all 70's cars but this year started a new generation cars like Mustang, Camaro, Challenger, Toyota Camry and a new Torino that even doesn't exist and it was only created for the series, most of the people want popular sports car and not this new cars that you barely see on the streets

Would love to see an episode on the Ford C100 someday, it was Ford's entry into Group C and their first factory effort at sportscar racing since the legendary GT40, only for the car to be hopelessly unreliable and the entire program be scrapped within a year.

I always thought that the Merc would've been far more competitive if Erebus had of designed the engine to the ruleset in the first place rather than trying to come in with things like throttle by wire and 2 throttle butterflies rather than the specified 8 etc etc. It had all these waivers and as a result they ended up undoing most of them anyway and to a degree they were hampered by Supercars imposing a bore x stroke ratio on them that wasn't particularly favourable to a DOHC engine

still a few sound mixing issues, but man, has your video production improved!

I always thought it was kind of a shame that Volvo, Nissan, and Mercedes didn't last too long in modern V8 Supercars - coming from a NASCAR and Indycar background, we're always begging for new makes and engine manufacturers to join our sports, and it's a shame only two companies found true success in Supercars

Thanks for doing my idea 👍 I was at that first test in 2013, and those cars were continuously stalling in the pits.

So they won races with no factory support, more regulations and poor body/chassis design? Doesn't sound that "failed" to me

fantastic content, only criticism i really have is that the music in the background is often too loud, sometimes louder than your voice.

I’ve never heard of this Mercedes and Nissan can’t have over 652hp rule. It’s always been said that that was the limit for everybody / the horsepower that everybody made equally Also the cone brought the safety car out because there is a metal rod underneath of it, and they were worried of people blowing their tire out on it with it not being visible. Another great video, I see this channel taking off like it deserves. It’s cool to see other people on here genuinely interesting in more than one or two disciplines of racing, and be generally knowledgeable about it.

I liked the rawness of V8 Supercars because they had less grip, more weight, long braking distances and overall way more challenging to drive. It was thrilling to see drivers controlling them as they were drifting out of corners and it felt really felt like old school racing when there was low mechanical grip and more dependent on technique. You can't find this type of driving in almost any modern popular racing series. I feel they should have let other manufactures compete without so much unfaireness in the ruleset, that would have brought innovation through compatition. Japan did a better job with JGTC and Super GT in this regard in my humble opinion.

From a European, the end of the Ford vs Holden era is a huge shame. All across the motor racing world the fierce rivalry, the El Clasico from Down Under, was regarded fondly. Something beautiful was destroyed. By the way we all know Ford were better here 😊

This video is edited as if it was made in the early 2010’s, awesome.

V8 supercars has seemingly just devolved into what nascar should be but in Australia. It’s sad what GM did to Holden. Yet another amazing brand in its backyard full of amazing brands that were killed off.

Wow, Michael Massey seems like a great race director! I’m sure he’ll go on to have a non-controversial and exciting career in Motorsport on a global scale!

The car showed up in at least one videogame, IIRC Listed, as wait for it...not Mercedes, but Erebus because Simbin couldn't get the Mercedes licensing, and it was pretty much an Erebus anyway so...

My mans got a sponsor I could cry

Great video. Love the lesser known stories. The btcc has a tonne. Infinity and the Mazda 323f. Your videos fill a nice niche of Motorsport. You also can do stuff on cheats. Smokey yunick is a wild ride.

In short SVG knifed stones brothers I. The back he retired after he signed with Tehno. Merc weren’t allowed to compete. Their engine program was not the stretch. They are supercars for special dispensation as well as help to bring their panels up hence why the field drop rule was introduced in the supercars which worked out to be a complete failure as did not have the straight line they needed for many other straits, end up pulling the pin and leaving the sport

More like what they did was hella dumb. The E63 was big, heavy and worse still, there IS a smaller car in Mercedes's lineup that's smaller than the E-class and that's the C63. It has the same engine, technically same build and the same gearbox thus it would be easy to use the smaller yet similar car. That's where Volvo was smart. They too have the S60 which was a medium-sized sedan like the C-class and it's waaay smaller than the Australian "Commie" and the Falcons. That made it nimbler to drive which helps alot on more technical tracks. Also, Mercedes-Benz Pacific or whatever the HQ was that the Aussies had had the lamest reasoning on why they didn't wanna participate in the sport by calling it "degrading" and "bogan" when... AMG started as a "bogan" company doing silly stuff to Merc to race in "bogan" events and they still do till now in certain events. Look at AMG's history. What they did was soo unassuming that they took a huge ass 300SEL out of everyone's thought and smacked it right into the 24 Hours of Spa which was just being mocked by everyone for being stupid and silly that how would these bunch of garage tuners had such sheer audacity to take a yacht to battle against proper built sportscars? Yes the SEL didn't win of course but it built a reputation that even garage tuners like them can make a boat fly down the track and give chase to actual properly built race cars and the rest was history for AMG. Heck they even became an official partner for DTM at one point which was the German equivalent of "bogan motorsport" as the ATTC/V8 Supercars so I have zero clue what the hell was Mercedes Australia complaining about when AMG itself was made by 2 bogans, taking a car and then dumping stupid parts on it to go racing, shocking everyone and even competing in their variant of a "bogan motorsport" so what's the big idea about them racing in V8 Supercar with actual factory team support even?

I remember being at the GC 500 when the Volvo and Nissan were competing as well, The Mercedes sounded the best of the lot. i remember the Volvo sounded very unique as well. Good times

Honestly when i first saw the Mercedes V8 supercar it intrigued me being visually distinct from the other cars mind you this was in 2018 a few years after they left the sport in a league i did run a holden for their one off Supercars championship i didn't place that well because i was still an amateur compared to other drivers who would lap entire seconds faster makes me wonder though what if i drove the Mercedes instead

Man’s getting sponsored now he’s hitting the big time

You brushed over the 6.2 Lt merc, big factor why amg didn't want to help, all their efforts were going into the 5.5 lt, this is a stroker crank, very much different, amg viewed this as going backward. Got this from erebus first hand at pukekohe, no doubt points to not enough prior planning.

Now do we get the Polstar Volvo, all I remember of that is Robert Dahlgren's aerobatics at Adelaide that one year, and how good the car looked, albeit in mid unplanned flight though. Volvo always strikes me as an odd one to go into the category around that timecrash

HSV and FPV were competition to AMG locally...

Best sounding v8 supercar to date 🤤🤤

This was an actually interesting era, I always hoped to see more variety, like a Kia Stinger when they "allowed" for turbo V6s to enter

Perhaps the execs at Mercedes Australia should've done their homework and looked into DTM fans before going for that angle with the head honchos in Stuttgart...

In person though, it sounded amazing. That's worth... Something

i've been watching your videos for some time now, and you keep giving us bangers!

that option is funny

do one about the volvo, that was a sweet sounding car

Really good video! A few editing mistakes with music being too loud around 20:49, white text on light backgrounds, and some mic issues. Only constructive criticisms, loved the vid thumbs up

sorry about the background music competing with your words for my attention.

20:34 yeah, this sound mixing is interesting. The video's great, but try to avoid that next time 👍

Ngl before watching the video, my brain immediately associated V8 Supercar and Mercedes with the SLS AMG or even the AMG GT and I was highly confused why the the AMG GT and especially the SLS sucked 💀

11:35 i dont think its a good idea to put white text on a white background also holy shit fave reveal

The video just told us australians have a bad ego problem at least back in the day

I was there in 92. Fantastic event

when Volvo did better than Merc something is seriously wrong

Not an electronic music fan but the music in this was great. The mercs were great looking cars. Also had a blast driving these things in Forza Motorsport

I totally get why they wanted to preserve the Holden vs ford mentality, but it was such a short sighted decision with the obvious demise of Aussie car manufacturing right on the horizon. V8 Supercars would probably be a much more exciting space today with a bit more diversity on the grid

GM and Ford had a 20 year head start in development, building 620 hp V8s, rev limited to 7500rpm. Supercars should afforded the DOHC more revs and less displacement They would no doubt have been able to make the required power and consumption. Supercars have pretty much done that with a 5.7 GM LS and a 5.4 Ford modular.

Thank you for this video! It's actually hard to pick a good Australian touring car subject and this is a job well done. Apologies for not commenting on your daily bulletins so much. I am very busy with a new job! 🙂 The Mercedes-Benz attitude was stupid given that Mercedes actually had an interesting and successful history of racing in Saloon and Touring Car events in Australia. Look at Bob Jane and Phil Ward.

that text option was funny

Best sounding car on the grid, unfair engine rules imposed on the new comers Nissan Volvo and merc

Man I miss the Volvos...

so basically aussie mercedes was going all purist while the actual mercedes amg division was like: oh ya wanna race an e63 in aussie land with a big ole v8? hell yea i wanna see that shit

V8 Supercars needs the Kia Stinger. Change my mind. It needs better racing, I miss COTF.

How to solve the issues with nationalism: don't have national brands 25:41 i mean, Stock Car is going to have SUVs from 2025 onwards, and both motorsports don't have national cars (not as if we had any to begin with, as i stated). So what's worse, SUVs or unobtainable cars?

11:56 Hell yeah brother! You SHILL that shit! HAHAHA! I love it! I'm just giving you a hard time, man! This is good stuff and allows your channel to grow!

What you said about the car being officially called an Erebus I think that's the way the series should go Have a few different body's you can choose from And you can call it what you want. Like the 888 or the red bull or whatever

Homologation process is problem can't match dohc to pushrod should have made ford and Holden run factory engines sooner...

So Australia had a series with cars not from Australia? Just rebrands

Alright, Failed racers. I’ve got one for you: the 1978 Dodge Magnum and 1981 Dodge Mirada NASCAR race cars…

great video tho, not much light is ever put on this car and I've always loved it from forza!

Wasn't even factory backed.

I’d happily have that old g27 of your lol 😂

11:35 please don't do white text over a white background lol

no they didnt. they had a homologated 'car of the future' frame with plastic bolt on panels and a boilerplate v8 with mercedes stickers all over it. Beginning of the end. Didnt win on Sunday, couldnt buy on Monday.

Improved production racing is much more interesting to watch. IPRA. even some one make series like the hyundai's and the nissan pulsars are more interesting.

HOLDEN RAAAHHHH ‼️‼️‼️‼️

Great video just the music on the last part was louder than your voicemakikg it hard to hear yoh

Also a correction, the 650bhp most definitely applied to the Ford and Chevroiet engines

It wasn't a real mercedes in the sense it wasn't an official factory car

Pretty soon itll be called the Lithium ion battery Rc cars championship due to every manufacturer going EV,and everyone will be drinking Miller lites and other hipster drinks.What a nightmare 😂

Even the Volvo S60

Unfortunately any car that doesn’t have ties to GM, will get shafted in this series.

Surprise face moment

Do the Mercedes CLR next

Imagine having your series just becoming a worse version of an American series while racing American cars

I thought you were gonna diss the clk lm but nah, and I'm here for it

Supercars has only ever been Holden and Ford and bogans who only care about the sound - the rest came, were too slow (except Scott in the Volvo briefly) and then ran away

They didn’t need AMG, they needed Ilmor

Ironic considering bogans ended up buying Mercedes C63s anyway. Default boganmobiles these days

Love ya Greg Murphy

just ban everything that isnt shit lol

The V8 saloon and coupe is a dying breed. If they want to get all the manufacturer support back they'll have to ditch the V8s which I don't think is going to happen. Manufacturers are only incentivized to make hybrid/electric compacts and SUVs nowadays.

The HP limit applied to everyone to promote equal driver racing . Or if u had unlimited it becomes a wallet racing class . This sends most car racing series broke . . Promoting turbo cars against N/A Naturally aspirated was never going to work in the early days .

So weird Australians and British people claim Ford and Vauxhalls/Holdens.

Supercars should adopt the mustang gt3 and corvette gt3r. That way they can keep the gm v ford thing and have far better cars to race with. Probably also make the sport cheaper

Isn't supercars and DTM the same

I call it V8 Stupid cars cos of the rule makers!!! Over powered under tyred