These are the first sketches of the Next Generation Touring Car concept, which is set to be launched at the last round of the 2010 British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch next month.
Based on the Toyota Avensis, the NGTC is being constructed by Buckingham’s GPR Motorsport, and is designed as a testbed for next year’s changes to BTCC specifications, which are being introduced to cut development costs.
See the official sketches of the new BTCC racer
Series organisers hope that once the Avensis model has been tested at the Brands Hatch event, the underlying technology will be available for adoption by the competing teams, all of which will need to comply with the new regulations from 2011.
The car will be tested by two-time BTCC champion James Thompson, who has been racing in the European Touring Car Championship this season.
Toyota, meanwhile, has no plans to feature a team of its own in the BTCC for the foreseeable future.
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Re: Next-gen BTCC racer previewed
A spectacular article by Autocar that tells you absolutely nothing.
Re: Next-gen BTCC racer previewed
Sounds like the proposal is for a single spec racing car designed to achieve close, spectacular racing for participating teams. But I'd dearly like a return to a more showroom based specification, so we could see how today's production cars fare on the track with minimal modifications. Would today's Mini Coopers give a BMW or Jaguar a run for its money around a tight, twisty race track? Without a back-to-basics production based series, we'll never know.
Re: Next-gen BTCC racer previewed
Maybe in looks but not what's beneath the surface. DTM cars run big V8s and are basically space frames and carbon fibre with a body that looks like the road car. The costs are massive compared to the BTCC.
Anything the BTCC can do to reduce costs will be a good thing if it gets some factory teams back in the sport.