Production Cars
As the name suggests this group is a Showroom Showdown of cars that are modified from factory as little as possible, but enough modification to make a safe and reliable race car.
MODERN Group E
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The jewel in the crown is undoubtably the annual Bathurst 6 Hour, which has been held during the Easter weekend every year since 2016 except for the postponed, and then cancelled, 2020 edition. The event now features oversubscribed entries and a multi-class structure of exclusively Group 3E regulation vehicles.
For 2026 the ARDC are stepping up to deliver the Motorsport Australia Production Car Endurance Series. This will have 4 rounds, including a stop at Queensland Raceway and finishing at the Bathurst 6 Hour in 2027 as Round 4.
Here in Queensland any Production Car racer can compete at the Queensland Circuit Racing State Championship meetings with their cars in either Sports Sedans & Invited Cars, or the MA Production Car Endurance Series round, or with the Queensland Production Car club, depending on the event program.
Technical regulations can be found on the Motorsport Australia website in the regulations section under Group 3E Production Cars.
HISTORIC Group E
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Throughout the 1980’s there was a reemergence of Production Car racing as a modern category. At first CAMS provided a technical regulation set that promoters could use to make competitions from, but as Group C continued to evolve into more highly tuned cars that were then replaced by International Group A, the popularity of Production Car racing resulted in the Australian Production Car Championship (APCC) debut in 1987 and become a support category to the national touring cars show.
The same types of cars can be built today under other category regulations, so tributes and replicas are possible.
There are distinct generations of car involved in the first seasons of the APCC, loosely they are:
Group Ea
Pre-championship racing of early to mid-1980’s cars characterised by the V8 version of the VK Commodore, SA22 chassis Mazda RX7, and the Mitsubishi Cordia and Starion among others.
Group Eb
Turbo-dominance era, with popular cars including Series 4 RX7 Turbo, Turbo VL Commodore and Toyota’s Supra. Honda's sporty CRX also blew away the competiton in the small car class.
Group Ec
Costs started to get out of hand running at the front of the field so a change was made, and the next era was created by eligibility rule changes and was dominated by 6-cylinder EA/EB Falcons and VN/VP Commodores, while Suzuki’s mighty Mk1 Swift GTi stole the chocolates in the baby car class.
Group Ed
With the transition of Group A into an exclusively Commodore vs Falcon affair firmly entrenched, and the costs still being high at the front of APCC, another change was made. The 4th and final era of APCC before it folded into the Aus GT-P organisation for 1996 was the 2.5 Litre Front-Drive only era of 1994 & 1995. The battle was mainly between a fleet of N14 Nissan Pulsar SSS, but they were joined by interesting cars like the Volvo 850 5-cylinder. Suzuki continued to have its flag flown by the Mk2 and Mk3 versions of the Swift GTi but was also joined by Toyota’s Corolla SX/GTi and others.