Fourth Brand in V8 Supercars in 2013?! - Wild Mass Guessing

[TheFamousEccles]

Nissan and Mercedes teams to debut with power deficit - Speedcafe

[Ash Smalley]

The Nissan is a nice car indeed

[Rollo]

Chrysler firms as fifth V8 Supercars make - motoring.com.au
Chrysler is emerging as the hot favourite to be the fifth manufacturer to join V8 Supercars racing and Garry Rogers Motorsport is firming as the team with which the US brand is most likely to pair.
...
Speculation about the fifth manufacturer has been rising in the V8 Supercars pit lane for the last month, especially Chrysler and GRM renewing negotiations after a deal between the two was shot down late in the piece in 2012.

Sort of. If this rumour comes to fruition, Chrysler would be the new fourth manufacturer to join V8 Supercars. Why?

Ford closure sends shockwave through manufacturing industry - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Ford Australia president Bob Graziano today announced the car-maker would shut its Broadmeadows and Geelong plants in October 2016, bringing an end to nearly 100 years of car-making history in Australia and spelling the end of the iconic Ford Falcon.

This morning when Bob Graziano was asked about the future of FPV he said that FPV didn't seem to have a future beyond 30th June of this financial year and that its operations would be scaled back.
Since Ford Performance Racing sits inside the ringfence of FPV, without FPV's existence, then Ford Performance Racing would look dubious at best in surviving into 2014. Assuming FPR falls over, then Dick Johnson Racing would have to go it alone and they'd more likely court one of the three new manufacturers (Nissan, Erebus or Chrysler) than run cars which would be at least 12 months old with no new bits coming.

2014 might very well be Holden, Nissan, Mercedes and Chrysler for all we know.

[TheFamousEccles]

Prescient timing with the COTF and inviting other manufacturers onto the grids. Ford are all but finished on a manufacturing basis in Australia, and it's been coming for quite some time. As are Holden, though I still don't think that they will lose the Holden nameplate entirely. Though should V8SC race in Europe, would they brand as Opel? Chev in US/Canada?

Getting new manufacturers in is a good thing, but I don't know how the bogans are going to like their Red or Blue teams not showing up to race?

[Rollo]

As are Holden, though I still don't think that they will lose the Holden nameplate entirely. Though should V8SC race in Europe, would they brand as Opel? Chev in US/Canada?

There is a precedent for this:


Actually, now that Opel sell cars in Australia, I don't really see any reason why a Holden couldn't be debranded and rebranded to race here. Maybe someone like Tekno Motorsports or that Ekol car would be a nice brand fit.

The Bogans seem to have reacted well to Nissan and MB appearing in the V8SC and the fact that beyond 2016 there won't actually be any Falcons, might mean that no Blue Oval at all is an idea that they'd have to get used to.

[TheFamousEccles]

I've been wrong before. Nameplates disappearing is not without precedent, it will be interesting to see how the rank and file re align.