The old Holden Racing Team of V8 Supercars fame is switching to Ford?! How Walkinshaw Andretti United's brand switch is hardly the first time a race team has jumped ship

Bombshell announcements are few and far between in modern motorsport, as teams tend to prefer evolution rather than revolution. But Ford dropped a genuinely shocking announcement today - confirming it has signed Walkinshaw Andretti United (WAU) to run Mustangs starting in the 2023 season.

Why is that so significant? Because WAU was the outfit once - and for a long-time - known as the Holden Racing Team. From 1988 until 2016, the Clayton-based squad was the official, factory-backed team and became synonymous with the brand and enjoyed massive success thanks to legendary names like Brock, Lowndes, Skaife, Murphy and Tander.

Winning trumps tradition in motor racing, though, so WAU team boss Ryan Walkinshaw has decided to swap manufacturers as the Gen3 regulations begin to give drivers Chaz Mostert and Nick Percat the best possible chance of winning races and championships. While WAU won 11 titles (six drivers’ and five teams’) as the Holden Racing Team, it hasn’t won a championship since 2009.

“Today marks a new era for Walkinshaw Andretti United, one we are extremely excited about,” team co-owner, Ryan Walkinshaw, said. “For over three decades we have gone head-to-head in competition with Ford, but joining forces with them for Gen3 was the clear direction forward.

“We are extremely proud of our history with Holden over such a long period of time, that is something we will always be grateful for. We will wear the Holden badge with pride right up until their final race in Supercars at the end of 2022. But now it’s time for change, it’s time for a new chapter.”

While a major change for WAU, this is hardly the first time a leading team has made a dramatic manufacturer switch.

The biggest is unquestionably Peter Brock’s infamous fallout with Holden during the 1987 season, when he dropped the Lion brand and swapped to BMWs for 1988. When the E30 M3s proved uncompetitive, Brock did what was considered unthinkable at the time and began racing Fords. He drove the popular Ford Sierra Cosworth in 1989 and 1990 with mixed results and ultimately ended up back in Holdens for the 1991 season.

Brock’s long-time arch-rival, Allan Moffat, also made a controversial car swap in the 1980s, ditching his association with Ford in favour of the then-new Mazda RX-7. He raced the rotary-powered sports car for five seasons before he then, perhaps even more shockingly, joined Peter Brock in a Holden for 1986.

Gibson Motorsport was synonymous with Nissan in touring car racing in the 1980s and early ‘90s, most famously with the all-conquering R32 Skyline GT-R. But when the V8 Supercar regulations came into effect for the 1993 season, the team was forced to drop the potent Nissans in favour of Holden Commodores - taking Jim Richards and Mark Skaife with it.

More recently, and somewhat fittingly in the context of WAU’s Ford swap, was Triple Eight Race Engineering’s decision to drop Ford in favour of Holden in 2010. Despite winning the back-to-back championships and Bathurst 1000s, Ford cut the team’s funding, leaving the path open for the transition to Holden.

The team would go on to become Holden’s leading squad, so much so that Holden decided that for the 2017 season onwards Triple Eight would become the new Holden Racing Team - replacing WAU.

Let's also not forget Kelly Racing's switch from Holden to Nissan in 2013 with the Altima, before moving again to Ford with the Mustang in 2020. 

But arguably the most controversial of all brand swaps was in 2014, when Garry Rogers Motorsport swtiched from Holden to Volvo, with the factory supported S60s best known for making Scott McLaughlin a household name. Volvo's time in the sport only lasted three seasons, however, with GRM returning to Holden Commodore entries for 2017.

It was also recently revealed how close GRM came to becoming a Chrysler factory team, with high level discussions taking place in 2012. A budget shortfall ended thse plans, however.