A Glimpse of New Look Erebus Machines

UPDATE: 

Erebus Motorsport V8 has announced on social media it will reveal the 2014 V8 Supercars on Friday morning.

The post stated team owner Betty Klimenko decided to shy away from a corporate team launch this season, instead opting to make a considerable donation to an organisation committed to assisting Australia’s next generation.

“We are extremely happy and excited with the look of our cars for the year,” Klimenko said in the post.  

“I believe the designs and colours being introduced this year will hold the interest of race fans well after the fan-fare of a traditional season launch has subsided.

“This year we want to do it the Erebus way and we will present a cheque equal to what we would normally contribute to our launch to a very worthwhile cause.”

Already thrilled with new pilot Will Davison’s third placing at last weekend’s Bathurst 12-Hour event, team boss Ryan Maddison said he was confident the new look Mercedes-Benz AMG E63s would receive overwhelming approval from the team’s growing legion of fans.

Maddison described the livery as “a strikingly different look for the world of V8 Supercars”.

 “For the first time the Erebus Motorsport V8 team has the opportunity to run sister cars with a design that lends itself towards a more futuristic and ‘Next Gen’ appearance," Maddison said. 

“It is important that we have branding friendly and exciting race cars, providing our partners with maximum opportunity to gain exposure for their respective brands.”

The liveries will be launched online at 10am AEDT Friday, ahead of the sydney.com V8 Supercars Test Day on Saturday, which is free for fans to attend at Sydney Motorsport Park. 

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According to Erebus Motorsport V8 team boss Ryan Maddison, ominous and futuristic are the best words to describe this season’s cars.

The Mercedes-Benz AMG E63s have had makeovers, and with sponsorship changes since 2013 – and a new driver line-up, with the addition of Bathurst winner Will Davison, alongside Lee Holdsworth – there was some freedom in creating the new 'Erebus' look.

V8supercars.com.au can offer a peek at the cars, set to be unveiled prior to the sydney.com V8 Supercars Test Day next week.

Running two cars this season, the team now has the opportunity to create a uniform look – which Maddison prefers – after running three cars with majorly different liveries last year.

“We always wanted to have a strong look, a strong sister car approach, that they both look the same and like a single team,” he explained. “At times last year, other than the garage and the transporters, you’d say we were running three single car teams.”

Maddison sees two key benefits from taking this approach – repeatability and reparability.

“With the way the calendar is tacked in V8 Supercars these days, we’ve got an intense work effort that goes into spares (panels),” he said.

“So the choice of colour, your ability to print it and lay it on the vehicle, and the workload it causes back at the workshop is another major factor. With what we had last year, the cars – with very different liveries – we had to carry completely independent spares for each individual car.

“We will hopefully progress as far as we can into this year to create spares that will be adaptable to both cars.”

So, with a bit of freedom and imagination, what need to be considered when coming up with a new scheme for two V8 Supercars?

“We all see road cars every day and see some cars decorated on the road that might look quite cool when you see it passing by – but that’s very different to a race car coming past at 200-odd kilometres an hour!

“A major consideration is it needs to be identifiable on everyone’s TV screen, whether that’s live streaming on a smart phone, or on a projector in someone’s theatre at home – both ends of the scale.

“Our car and our brand (needs to) stand out amongst the other cars out there on the field. There’s some really loud and vibrant colours out there.”

But the car also needs to look good stationary, with a “level of attitude” for photoshoots, a look of movement, and, of course, a strong representation of Erebus and its associated brands, including AMG.

“From our side, we’ve certainly chosen colours we think tick all those boxes and hopefully will be quite noticeable on a TV screen.”

The shift to twilight racing creates another factor, with the dusk lighting affecting the look of the cars – something Maddison was excited about and felt worked to the team’s advantage.

“I guess this is where we will start to see teams use the lighting on the vehicle to help … the car look exciting on track.

“Fortunately the standard E63 road car has an LED lighting system, so we’re able to adopt that into our approach on the race car.

“It’s a simple system to use and low voltage, so that’s nice from a racing aspect and low consumption – but as far as twilight we want colours that are going to work and be exciting at night. That’s not necessarily that the car is going to be reflective like what we might have at a GT event or 12-hour where the car is running literally through certain parts of the night, but we want to make sure that if it’s under certain light it’ll jump off the screen.”

Unfortunately, fans need to wait until next week the see the car. But you can see the new-look Erebus Mercs – and the other 23 2014 V8 Supercars – in the flesh for free, at the sydney.com V8 Supercars Test Day on February 15 at Sydney Motorsport Park. The day includes a grid walk at 12.30pm, so you can get up close and personal with the cars and stars on-track.