Trans Am for the 21st century

The Australian Trans Am Series has quickly established itself as an attractive low-cost V8 touring car-style alternative the Super2 Supercars second division. Especially for aspiring young drivers without a major financial benefactor or heavyweight corporate supporter. Can't afford what they're asking for a full season of Super2? Maybe Trans Am is for you.

 

Not that the category was ever intended to fill this role. Nor was it even designed with the Australian motor racing scene in mind at all. It is, of course, an all-American formula, part of the 2010 rebirth of the old Trans Am series for American muscle cars. The Trans Am cars we see here are essentially the second division (TA2) of modern American Trans Am, the headline act (TA1) being a less restricted formula running NASCAR-style carby-fed 5.9-litre V8s, with around 600kW. 

TA2 Trans Am has been here for some years, in fact. It first came to Australia towards the end of 2016, and quickly found an audience among amateur racers. And why not: they’ve been deliberately designed as a low-cost ‘old-school’ race car – a full-sized big V8 that looks and sounds the part, with good horsepower but not much downforce. Mechanically, they’re fairly simple, so a large team of engineers and banks of computers are not required. And because the technology is comparatively basic, they’re also surprisingly inexpensive to run. But they do take some taming: talk to any of the drivers and they’ll tell you how rewarding, and how much fun, these things are to drive.