Edwards has now laid eyes on each prototype Gen3 automobiles, having visited Triple Eight again in June to see the Camaro after which Dick Johnson Racing earlier this month to see the brand new Mustang.
He appreciated what he noticed, too, telling the Parked Up podcast that the automobiles are going to show heads.
“Between the two Townsville [rounds] I went with a couple of my engineers and Matty [Roberts], my team manager, down to DJR to have a look at their prototype in build. And I was at Triple Eight about four weeks before that looking at their prototype in build,” Edwards stated.
“There’s still a huge amount of work to be done on it. But it’s a sexy looking race car. That’s the first tick of the box. It will sound good and it will look good, no doubt. It’s a good looking jigger.”
Supercars has a put a specific emphasis on what it has labelled highway automotive DNA with these automobiles, the design focussed on higher resembling street-legal Camaros and Mustangs.
According to Edwards, the efforts to higher accommodate two-door automotive shapes, comparable to a decrease roll hoop, have paid dividends within the total aesthetic.
“We know with the [current] Mustang we had to adapt it a lot to make it fit on the current Car of the Future platform,” he stated.
“Well you would not wish to go ahead with that in a brand new mannequin. The actuality is, if you wish to convey the Camaro in now’s the time to deal with that. Now is the time that we have got to make it that we will put that two-door automotive on it, or one other two-door automotive on it.
“So we needed to make a change to the size of what underpins the exterior surfaces. Make a greater race automotive, make a greater trying race automotive, the roof is 100mm decrease, it is pumped… it will be trying race automotive. And it will sound good. But there is a little bit of ache to get there.
“When folks see these automobiles, and you are not far-off from seeing them, you are going to say ‘that is trying race automotive’. Picture the present automotive… it is nearly like if you see these artist’s impressions, they at all times look higher than they do in actual life as a result of they typically squat them and pump them out on the facet.
“That’s what Gen3 is going to be. We’re taking the artist’s impression and turning them into real life.”
The ache Edwards references is what has been a controversial roll-out of the brand new guidelines up to now.
The introduction has been pushed again twice, first from 2021 to 2022 after which from the beginning of 2022 to an unprecedented mid-2022 date.
The starting of prototype testing has now been pushed from subsequent month till later this yr, whereas there was a continuing rumbling of discontent from groups not concerned within the design, growth and homologation concerning an absence of communication and knowledge.
“Anything like, this is a huge project, and generally everyone underestimates the size of the project,” says Edwards, who additionally sits on the Supercars Commission.
“And that is definitely, for my part, what’s occurred right here.
“It is a completely new car; literally the transaxle is one thing that swaps across. And even that’s not straightforward, because if you’re putting assisted shift on it, that whole thing has to be morphed onto the top of the transaxle as well. So it’s an enormous project.”
And whereas cost-cutting has been a buzzword through the Gen3 roll-out up to now, Edwards is not satisfied there will probably be enormous financial savings on provide. But he’s assured the brand new low-aero automobiles will placed on higher racing than the present {hardware}.
“Whenever anybody talks about cost containment I generally laugh, because it just doesn’t happen,” he stated. “If we will hold the prices much like what they’re now, that would be the end result from a {dollars} perspective.
“But what we have now obtained is a bloody good trying race automotive, which on the floor needs to be a greater race automotive as effectively, since you ought to be capable to get within the tow and truly use that to get previous.
“At the second you sit behind somebody for greater than 30 seconds and also you overheat the tyres and blah blah blah.
“We want to improve out racing. And that’s not to say that it’s broken at the moment, we still put on a fantastic show. But if we can make it better, then that’s a big win.”
