The Red Bull Holden Sandman V6 TT has finally cut its highly-anticipated maiden laps of the Mount Panorama circuit ahead of this weekend’s edition of the Bathurst 1000.
The Sandman has been the test car for the development of Holden’s 3.6 litre twin-turbocharged V6 engine this year, which will make its competitive debut in the Next-Generation Commodore in 2019.
Four-time Bathurst winner, Greg Murphy, was the man behind the wheel for the Sandman V6 TT’s first outing at the 6.213 kilometre home of Australian motor sport.
“If you’re going to launch the Sandman V6 TT for the first time to the Australian public, what better place to do it than right here in Bathurst,” said Murphy.
“The noise inside the car was certainly different, it was a lot louder and tougher than I expected. The throttle response and driveability of the engine was awesome as well.”
Triple Eight Race Engineering managing director, Roland Dane, echoed Murphy’s sentiments on the sound of the new V6 engine.
“I really love the sound but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so sound is in the ear of the beholder I suppose, so we’ll see what people think,” he said.
“We’ve been concentrating on making the new engine more user-friendly by focusing on mapping and the power curve. It will be an ongoing process and I’d say we’ve only done about 20 percent of the work we need to.”
