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Ford and Triple Eight have had early talks about a potential collaboration on a road car and it could result in multiple locally-made street-legal models.
The Australian motor racing scene was rocked recently by news that the top-tier Supercars team will be leaving General Motors after 16 years and returning to Ford for the 2026 season.
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Early chats about potential car market initiatives have been happening.
“They’re first and foremost an engineering company that’s a top-notch racing team, so there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be involved,” said Mr Birkic when asked about a potential off-track partnership between Ford and Triple Eight.
“Fair dinkum, we’re not entirely sure what that’ll look like, but we’re definitely keeping an open mind.”
In addition to its Walkinshaw Performance aftermarket sibling, last year Walkinshaw Automotive released a Walkinshaw-branded Ranger limited edition, and Walkinshaw’s engineering team helped develop Ford’s official Ranger Raptor entry for its Finke Desert Race debut.
But Ford’s relationship with Walkinshaw Andretti United will wrap up at the end of the current Supercars season and Mr Birkic confirmed that Triple Eight will take over from where WAU leaves off.
We’ve done Finke and WAU has helped us in certain areas,” he said. “Obviously, they’re shifting to a different camp, so we do see opportunities for Triple Eight.
“Just at a higher level, what are we looking for, what do they’ve got? We’ll see how that works out.”
Potential partnerships between Ford and Triple Eight that go beyond motorsport, and which could be a logical next step, might involve collaborations in GT and off-road racing. This could include anything from T8-branded road cars to providing engineering support behind the scenes for Ford’s ongoing work on vehicle design and engineering in Australia.
A Triple Eight-engineered Mustang wouldn’t be Australia’s first locally developed, motorsport-themed version of the famous Ford pony car.
The current Ford Supercars teams, Tickford Racing and Dick Johnson Racing, have collaborated with Walkinshaw on Ford road car projects in the past. In addition, DJR assisted in producing Scott McLaughlin and Dick Johnson-branded Mustang limited editions in conjunction with Herrod Performance, which developed the R-SPEC for Ford in 2020.
Tickford also sells performance packs for Mustangs and Rangers.
For its part, the Brisbane-based Triple Eight team, which has already worked on projects in the aerospace and (during the COVID-19 pandemic) medical industries, is keen to further expand its design and manufacturing capabilities beyond motorsport.
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Triple Eight ran Ford Falcons from 2003 to 2009, before switching to Holden when Ford pulled out of the deal as part of broader racing budget cuts.
