SYDNEY: Swindon Powertrain has been appointed official engine partner of Walkinshaw TWG Racing, the homologation team for Toyota’s maiden campaign in the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship.
The Repco Supercars Championship (formally Australian Touring Car Championship) is the premier motorsport category in Australasia and one of Australia’s biggest sports.
The designer and manufacturer of high-performance road and race engines and components is developing and supplying key components for the all‑new GEN3 Toyota GR Supra.
The five‑year programme will see at least five Toyota‑powered cars join the grid in 2026.
Since the project was first announced a year ago, Swindon Powertrain has been working in close collaboration with homologation partner Walkinshaw TWG Racing to lead the development, simulation and production of development engines and key parts such as the crank train.
Final assembly and ongoing servicing of the race engines is undertaken by Walkinshaw TWG Racing at its facility in Clayton, Victoria.
Toyota’s all-aluminium, quad-cam 2UR-GSE V8 usually found delivering smooth, effortless performance in cars such as the Lexus LC500, now in 5.2-litre guise, was a natural basis for the Supercars series that mandates engine capacities between 5.0-litre to 5.7-litre.
“The engine’s architecture, such as its square 94×94 (bore and stroke), offers a great base for a competitive and durable power unit to achieve 600bhp,” says Swindon Powertrain managing director Raphaël Caillé.
Key to the project is balancing durability, performance and cost attributes.
“The Supercars calendar, including supporting the Australian F1 Grand Prix in Melbourne, sees over 12,000km of track running – that’s around five times the mileage of the 30-round British Touring Car Championship and harsher when you consider events such as the Bathurst 1000 with its 1.19-mile straight,” adds Caillé.
Balancing the need for engines to last the season and keep to stringent cost targets, Swindon Powertrain focused on the evolution of the crank train and valvetrain hardware as well as the combustion and calibration elements.
The robustness of Toyota’s road car engines meant cost-effective OE parts such as the cylinder head, block, main caps, timing chain and followers could be used.
The 2026 unit also runs hydraulic variable valve timing (VVT) and a 3D-printed inlet tract – the latter a manufacturing technology proven on Swindon Powertrain’s BTCC-winning engines.
With Swindon Powertrain’s ISO 9001-certified facilities located in the UK and France, its engineering team – headed by technical director Sylvain Rubio, who will be trackside for the first events – worked closely with the project partners to ensure distance is no object, underlining Swindon Powertrain’s capacity to support programmes around the world.
