[WTCC] The hypothetical WTCC

[DNQ]

Originally posted by Crash Test
Bloody hell, boy, sit down for a minute, because you've done a lot of digging!

I reckon you're signature sums that post up pretty well

How did I find this? Pretty easy, I was searching back through my past posts and this was one of the first things I posted here.

[kmchow]

There's one thing about globalization--it's that cars are becoming globalized as well. As result, I think the idea of WTCC has become more viable and attractive than it did in the past 20 years. Almost all manufacturers have a car that they can race everywhere. The only manufacturer I think that has problems is the GM/Opel/Vauxhall/etc... auto group. The names of cars may pose a problem, but at least the bodyshape problem is largely solved.

I think mid-size 4 door sedans are the common denominator!

[kmchow]

So here is analysis of the automakers entries if they were to race in '03. Did I miss anyone major?

Alfa Romeo (no cars in NA, so a problem!)
Audi A4
BMW 3 series
Chrysler Neon
Daewoo Leganza, Nubira
Ford Focus
GM/Vauxhall/Opel (no globally sold cars except for rumored '05/'06 Astra)
Honda Civic
Hyundai Lantra
Kia Shuma
Lexus IS300
Mazda 6
Mercedes C Class
Mitsubishi Lancer
Nissan (no globally sold cars)
Renault (no NA sold cars, so a problem!)
Seat (no NA sold cars, so a problem)
Toyota Camry (Corolla better choice, but not globally sold, Lexus IS300 possible???)
Volkswagen Bora or Passat
Volvo S60

[MaxSport]

KMC-Alfa is to be selling cars here in the next couple of years. Seat Toledos are VW Jetta/Boras and they could put big GM stickers on the Vectras when they come here for the race held prior to the US Grand Prix.

The idea of a WTCC is very cool, but too many dollars for the ROI. Maybe Fed Ex would do an in kind trade like they do with CART and ship the cars anywhere in exchange for series sponsorship.

The ETCC is international, but doesn't have the expense of a world tour. Let's see that get real big first.

Kurt

[kmchow]

Originally posted by MaxSport
KMC-Alfa is to be selling cars here in the next couple of years. Seat Toledos are VW Jetta/Boras and they could put big GM stickers on the Vectras when they come here for the race held prior to the US Grand Prix.

Wait, are you just making a suggestion or did the Vectras really race in the US Grand Prix support race? That's my point--if the manufacturer wanted to promote the brand, yeah, GM could just put GM stickers on a Vectra. OTOH, if you wanted to promote the car as well, then GM doesn't have a global car as yet. Technically, the Saturn LS is based on a lengthened Vectra, but again, that's just chassis, not bodystyle.

The idea of a WTCC is very cool, but too many dollars for the ROI. Maybe Fed Ex would do an in kind trade like they do with CART and ship the cars anywhere in exchange for series sponsorship.

[The ETCC is international, but doesn't have the expense of a world tour. Let's see that get real big first.

Oh yeah, our comments are purely fantasy.

[kmchow]

GM was tempted to bring over the Vectra, but it was deemed to be too small. Plus, GM saw how much Ford got criticized slammed for bringing over their "tiny" Mondeo. I like the size of the Mondeo. It's okay sized, not big, but not that bad (small)!!

The idea of a WTCC is very cool, but too many dollars for the ROI. Maybe Fed Ex would do an in kind trade like they do with CART and ship the cars anywhere in exchange for series sponsorship.

Well, if the WTCC were to become a serious proposition, it would mean that it must give F1 a run for it's money. Now would the FIA and Bernie(??) want such a competitor. OTOH, I can't see how F1 and a WTCC can't co-exist together. You would have the top/best open wheel series in the world, joined by the top/best touring car series in the world.

OTOH, if the WTCC doesn't become reality, perhaps Nascar may become the "WTCC" While Nascars aren't sold anywhere, Nascar has talked about visiting Europe--Britain and Germany.

[The ETCC is international, but doesn't have the expense of a world tour. Let's see that get real big first.

Oh yeah, our comments are purely fantasy. But heck, we can dream. But can you imagine what the grid could look like.

Whenever I want to experience that feeling, all I have to do now is to load up my Toca 2 with replacement car skins and voila, you can actually have most of the cars above racing together!!

[MaxSport]

KMC-I was just playing the PS version of TOCA 2. I should try the PC version and download some the different bodies.

The Mondeo is indeed perfect in size. I would not want anything much bigger.

Our SVT Contour just turned four and it is still like new. We have not had anything go wrong in 57k miles. I would buy a new ST 220 Mondeo if I could, but Ford N.A. won't let me.

The X Type is selling well where we live. You see them all over. I guess most Americans only like smaller cars when they cost too much.

Since this thread started with news about Nissan and the Primera, I will add that I wish I could buy the new Primera in top of the line form here in the US.

Alas they have done away with the N.American G20 Infiniti and replaced it with the too big for my taste G35.

KM

[racer69]

What a great thread.

First of all, there would have to be a standard touring car formula across the world, adopted in nearly every country.

I would definatly go with something similiar to Group A, just without the 500 evolution specials, and a turbo equivalency factor of 2.1 rather than 1.7, apart from that, Group A was perfect, relatively easy for a privateer, manufacturers were interested, and racing was generally pretty good. Imagine the great range of cars we would get in there today, it would be fantastic.

One thing that would have to be looked at would be whether smaller class cars should be able to compete for victory. One of the problems at the end of Group A, and the various equivalency formula's that were worked out after the ETCC demise for domestic series, was the misconception that the BMW M3 should have been an outright contender, when when it was originally built, it was only meant to be a class contender.

On race format's, definatly endurance races of usually 500km, but longer in special circumstances, and run over about 8 or 9 rounds, spread out relatively evenly over the year, to enable teams to also compete in the ETCC and national series.

Calendar:

Monza (500km)
Anderstorp (500km)
Magny Cours (500km)
Nurburgring, Nordschleife (500km)
Spa (24 Hours)
Silverstone (500km)
Bathurst (1000km)
Macau (Guia race)
Suzuka (500km)

Unfortunatly to get it happening properly, it would need the FIA's blessing, which would mean it would be screwed around with if it got near F1's popularity, hence why Bernie scrapped the World Sportscar Championship and the WTCC all those years ago.

[kmchow]

Hey, and what's a WTCC without a stop in Canada and the US?? And I would like to submit Vancouver, BC, Canada as a support race to the CART series. The fact that I also live in that city is merely a coincidence!!

[DNQ]

My Turn Now

Cars

Well, starting a whole new Formula would be a bit tough to start off with, as I can't imagine people would just throw together some cars for a new championship like a WTCC, when such a commitment would be required.

I say a formula that allows the entry of Super 2000, Super Production, BTC Tourers, GTP cars and Super Tourers with limited parity adjustments would work fine to start off with, and would leave open the variety of cars that could be entered...think about it, by combining those formulas that leaves a hell of a lot of possible cars. Based on cars which are ALREADY competing in the categories mentioned (or have done so in the last 12 months), you've got:

MG, Peugeot, Honda, Proton, BMW, Renault, Alfa Romeo, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Mazda, Ford/Tickford, Audi, Volkswagen, Vauxhall/Holden/Opel, Volvo, Toyota, Lexus.

That's 20 makes of cars that already have elgible vehicles racing somewhere in the world...and the following marques all have cars that could be suited to Touring Car racing:

Saab, Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia, Chevrolet, Citroen, Daewoo, Seat

There's another 8 more - 28 marques that could potentially race in a WTCC, albeit, at varying degrees of compeition, obviously the GTP and BTCC cars would be slowest, but you'd only need a parity based formula and you'd be free to fiddle around to make it even. Two classes would seperate things nicely too.

Races

Calender

Norisring - 300km
Bathurst - 500km (Double Points)
Brands Hatch - 300km (Evening Race)
Suzuka - 300km
Macau - 2 x 150km races (Non-championship)
Donington - 300km race
Seoul* - 500km (Double Points, Evening Race)

*It's about time international racing goes to South Korea!
By staging three rounds in Asia I think that opens the category up to more entires - Asia is an untapped market.

Calendar spread over the year to reduce travel burdens, allowing participants to take part in other series. Races held on non-DTM, BTCC, F1, ETCC weekends where possible.

Championship

Drivers: 25-20-15-12-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1
Double points for Bathurst, Seoul rounds

Teams: 25-20-15-12-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1
Highest Place Driver Scores Only
Double points for Bathurst, Seoul rounds

Manufacturers: 25-20-15-12-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1
All Cars Score, No Double Points

Maximum 3 cars per team

4 Hour Friday Practice Session
2 x 1 Hour Qual. Sessions on Saturday, 50% fastest in Group 1

Support Races

- Formula 3, British GT for Donington, Brands Hatch
- DTM, German Formula 3 for Norisring
- Asian Touring Car Championship in Seoul, Suzuka
- PROCAR at Bathurst
- Historic Touring Car at all venues
- Other localised supporsts

Drivers

2 drivers per car for 500km races
2 drivers per-car permitted at other rounds, half points

Phew! All that typing for something purely fictional!

[racer69]

Originally posted by kmchow
Hey, and what's a WTCC without a stop in Canada and the US?? And I would like to submit Vancouver, BC, Canada as a support race to the CART series. The fact that I also live in that city is merely a coincidence!!

Would a round in Canada and the USA attract a big enough crowd though, as neither have a big history of Touring Car racing. The manufacturers would probably want a round there though.

[rdjones]

Ok, this is what I think:-

Cars

I would use the BTCC touring car rules,hopefully you could get cars from:-

Opel/Vauxhall
MG
Proton
Peugeot
Alfa
Lexus
Ford
Renualt
Nissan
BMW
Volvo


Races

Each race meeting would be made up for three races

One sprint race of around 10 laps in distance
One longer race of around 20 laps in distance
One Feature race of arounf 50 laps in distance, with a pit stop between 25%-75% of the race distance.

Venues

Mar:- Monza
Apr:- Silverstone
May:- Magny-Cours
Jun:- Norising
Jul:- Jerez
Aug:- Road America
Sept:- Suzuka
Oct:- Bathurst
Nov:- Macau

[alesi95]

I would love to see this format, but ofcourse the only problem is.........Money.

A world championship would naturally involve a lot of travelling and shipping of cars, crew and parts. This would probably scupper any Privateers chances of taking part.

This leaves mainly manufacturers to compete with the odd Eccentric Privateer. However as we have seen many times before Manufacter involvement is sporradic. Most only have three year plans of involvement depending how commericially viable it is. In other words they want exposure.

Chances are Countries will only televise theyre home event, i.e Australlia will cover Bathurst but not Monza.
This means that only die hard enthusiast like ourselves will follow the series and not the regular Joes that manufactuers want to see in their showrooms.

The biggest problem the WTCC has to overcome is Brand recognition.
Most Manufacturers dont have a global car. (Even the infamous "Mondeo: World car" release of 93 was branded a "Contour" in America)
But even more importantly which I think most of you have missed is that two or more manufactures are owned by one company.
For example:

There are no Fords in the ETCC because, Ford own Volvo which already compete. Any Ford competition would have a negative affect.

This is why we saw less makes of car in the Btcc as the 90's ended.

Heres a list

Ford, Volvo, Jaguar,Mazda - owned by - FORD
Renault, Nissan - owned by - RENAULT
Toyota, Lexus - owned by - TOYOTA
Fiat, Alfa, Lancia - owned by - FIAT
Chrysler, Mercedes -owned by Chrysler/Diamler Benz
Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda, -owned by VOLKSWAGEN

If only it could work.

[hoffy]

Why couldn't it work?

The FIM have proved that you can run 2 World Championship series, with both of them popular and viable.

Imagine it. F1 would still be the pinicle and for the purist. World Tourers would be for those who want to relate to whats racing on the track

Much the same as the relationship between MotoGP and SBK

[alesi95]

I though I just explained why it wouldn't work.

Its doesn't work commercially.

[Tim Harvey Fan]

Max Sport, where did you hear that Alfa will be selling cars in North America? I have heard nothing of the sort and I like to think that I keep updated with the automobile market. I am interested to know the details.

Unfortunately, I think that the theoretical "WTCC" is out of the question because manufacturers do not have enought money to be involving themselves in something like this. For example, racing on 6 continents during a season means that the travelling and shipping fees would be enormous, almost as large or even larger than for F1. Considering that this series would be sedan racing, it is unlikely that people would be willing to put up the money for these costs. However, I have to admit that it is an interesting concept, even if it is not logically plausible.

I think that the cars should be like the BTCC Touring class right now, yet with a lot more "fixed" parts that all the cars have in common.

[MaxSport]

While I get a small rush every time I see "World Touring Cars" as a heading on the Autosport site, I agree that the costs involved would make a WTCC an unlikely proposition.

One reason the ETCC can work is that it is a series that is fairly cost effective for manufacturer teams as well as semi factory and private teams who must find outside sponsorship.

Being a Pan Euro series it will get exposure and imaging across Europe for little more investment than a national championship. It can also garner world wide exposure, even if it is a "only" a Euro championship as I think it can become a fairly big deal.

If you start taking trips to OZ,North America and China it not only gets more costly, but it presents problems as far as getting sponsors or even manufacturers to say yes to a program. For example- If Nissan Europe likes the idea, but Nissan N.A. and Nissan OZ say that it "doesn't fit with our plans and so we won't contribute", then the whole plan can become undone. Given the fact that Primeras are not sold in N.A. would be a good reason not to put N.A. marketing dollars into a program.

The old DTM crashed when it became the ITC. Part of CARTs problems are the cost and lack of interest from sponsors about racing overseas in markets they may not even be in.
The ETCC should learn from this and just put their efforts into making a spectacular Euro series, not into booking jumbo jets for excursions to far away places. Give us live TV coverage here in N.A., but don't make the series too costly by having a race here.

Let us also remember that the car companies can still reach the casual enthusiast or "Joe Average" here in America with ads promoting their brands involvement in the European Touring Car Championship. It will have no less impact than telling people that they are racing in a World Championship would.

Besides, if it stays a Euro series then Uncle Bernie and his hand puppet Max won't see it as a threat to F-1 and try to kill it.

Kurt Maxwell
MaxSport/Motorsports Marketing
Indianapolis,IN. USA

[MaxSport]

Harvey Fan- When GM and Fiat did their stock swap they also agreed to do joint platforms as well as sell Alfas here in N.A. again.

The original plan was to start selling 156s by the fall of '03. Now they have decided to wait for the new 156 design, so who knows when we will get them?

They are to be sold at Saab dealers, but there was talk of selling them at Cadillac stores.

As the owner of an Alfa 75 2.5 I will be glad to see them back. I just hope the reliablity has improved!!!!

Our SVT Contour (ST-200) may not have the soul of the Alfa
but has been a much more reliable car and would be a much less expensive to car to repair should the need arise. You get used to this and so I would have to be convinced that Alfas had gotten better before I bought one.

KM

[Tim Harvey Fan]

Cool, I can't wait until the Alfas come back to North America.

[kmchow]

Speaking of Alfa, some guy in the US was supposedly trying to sell a 156 that he imported into the US on Ebay. It was originally imported using tourist/diplomat papers I think? He wanted 55K US for the car!!

[bestetti26]

dear friends, I think this topic is interesting, so let me throw a stone in the pond

Reading the post I've realized that, before talking about World Championship, European Championship, Here Championship and There Championship, there is a very big question that we have to answer: WHAT DO YOU MEAN WITH "TOURING CARS"?

1 - the cars that normal people buy? your neighbour, the people you meet while you go working and queque with you at the supermermarket?
If this is the correct answer, the idea of WTCC has simply no basic. The cars sold in NA are different from those sold in OZ, and in Europe and Asia each nation has it's own kind of market: in fact we have ETCC, BTCC, STCC, French Silhouettes and DTM
Only Japanese manufacturers sell the same model in many countries, but with a lot of local adaptations. And would you organize a championship using models of manufacturers that have not a Touring Car Championship in their home market. The JTCC lasted only 2 or 3 season in the beginning of Super Touring era, it has even been the first to close down.
Some of you could say that Audi or Bmw or Mercedes are sold in NA: that's true, but don’t tell are bought by the normal mr. Smith.
The global market is still far far away. And this mean that a lot of manufacturers are not interested to promote cars in nations where they will never sell a single car. Alfa (or Seat or Peugeot or …) are not going to sell massively cars in Japan or in OZ, so why have to pay for shipping cars so far from their main markets? Just to hope that some guy sees their model on TV? Very poor and not so commercial.

2 - cars where at least 4 persons could seat in comfortably?
This could make the market a little bit more global: we could add Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Jaguars and the next Maserati. But we don't solve the problem, there still are a lot of manufacturers not interested in the whole world

Only after having answered this question we could talk about: race formats, aero kits, wings, engine size, TV coverage and all the other "little

[racer69]

Why is everyone convinced this won't work, if the correct formula is used, it will definatly work.

It was working in 1986 before Bernie stepped in, the manufacturers all wanted to enter, as did quality privateers, and no mention at all was made of cost.

It wouldn't work if it was announced for next year, because it would need common rules in many countries, but once that happened, it would fulfill all the promise shown during the lead-up and in some ways during the one and only WTCC in 1987.

[JMeissner]

But just imagine the costs for the teams to get their cars, equipment, personel, etc on to an aeroplane and fly to, noth america, asia, etc from Europe... I can't imagine that it would work for more than the very large teams..

[MaxSport]

In the spirit of optimism (after all it is July 4th here in "The Colonies") I will say that in time a WTCC could happen and maybe should happen.

The ETCC is looking stronger than I had even hoped for. However, part of this strength comes from it being cost effective and making business sense.

Perhaps after the ETCC gets so big that it has no choice but to expand we will see a World Championship for Touring Cars, but I think it will be a while before they come to OZ or Indy.

KM

[kmchow]

Re: bestetti26 comments

I addressed your concern earlier on when this thread began!! Yes, I think the viability of the WTCC was a major problem 10 years ago. However, due to globalization of the auto industry, the idea of a WTCC is much better. If you recall my initial list of cars I drew up. Yes, there are Audi/BMWs/MBs that your average neighbor probably doesn't drive. But in my list, there is also cars such as the Mazda Protege/323, VW Bora/Jetta, Ford Focus, Honda Civic. The Protege/Civic have very little adaptions. Ditto for the Jetta. These cars are very average.

I think it is good to have a variety of cars-both average as well as well as "luxury" cars. I think that most would agree that the car entry is no longer a problem.

For example, in North America, people don't know anything other than Nascar or CART. Touring cars are a tough sell.

HOWEVER, the BIGGEST ISSUE is probably money and budget.
The manufacturers must somehow get all their regional importers to cooperate. IE: Will Toyota USA split the cost of racing the cars with Toyota Gb, Toyota Germany,etc...

I recall hearing a rumor that Volvo Canada was willing to pick up part of the cost of racing a ST 850 in the NATCC. However, Volvo USA will unwilling to do so. Yet it would have been too costly for Volvo Canada to race a 850 on their own. As we result, we never got to see a ST 850 over on our side of the shore.