The Next Gen Commodore Supercar Is Out Of The Wrapper

Here she is Holden fans.

You're looking at the future of the Commodore in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship.

It's the 16th model to carry Holden's lion badge on an Aussie race track.

Based on the forthcoming ZB Commodore built in Germany, Holden reckons it's on to a winner with its "sleek hatchback styling" and advanced "aerodynamic competition package."

The car hit the track on the Gold Coast yesterday to 'pop the cherry' (our words, not Holden's) for a 60 kilometre shakedown.

Triple Eight Racing are steering the development programme with GM Holden.

They should know what they're doing given their guys are on the spanners for Jamie Whincup, Shane van Gisbergen and Craig Lowndes.

T8 boss Roland Dane says they've earned their pay checks developing this beast.

“The team’s had to work incredibly hard this year in order to compete on track with the current VF Commodore, but also work flat out on the new car."

"By the time we get to the end of this year, the development process will have taken up about 20,000 hours."

Whincup got the very first drive and thankfully didn't prang it.

“So far it feels fantastic. The work that they’ve done behind the scenes to this point, in my opinion we’re 99 per cent there," said the 6-time champ.

"There’s just some fine-tuning that’s got to go on in the next few weeks and the next few months until we unleash the full version in 2018.”

The ZB Commodore's got some big tyre tracks to follow.

The VF model it succeeds also happens to be the most successful model in history with 104 championship wins.

And did we mention she'll also eventually run a twin turbo V6 under the hood?

Yeah that's a story for another day.

The new car should be ready to race at the Adelaide 500 in March ahead of the road car's release at your nearest Holden dealer.

Triple M's coverage of Supercars is presented with Mobil 1. Purchase any Mobil 1TM SuperTM product for the chance to win a share of three HSV vehicles and $15,000 worth of VISA gift cards. Visit askformobil.com.au