Passion, safety and style will be on display at Mount Panorama, Bathurst, come February, with the official announcement that the Alfa Romeo 159 will lead the field as the official safety car for the 2008 WPS Bathurst Motor Festival. The Alfa Romeo 159 is an acclaimed combination of top-of-the-line safety, technology, elegance and style, and Alfa Romeo will supply a trio of this prized combination as the official safety car and course cars for the 2008 WPS Bathurst Motor Festival.

Alfa Romeo has a unique place in motor sporting history, with a name that has been closely linked to motorsport since the birth of the motor car. Most famously the Italian car maker won both the very first Formula One World Championship and repeated this effort by taking the first post war title. In addition it has won races and titles in most motorsport arenas and provided many legendary names, perhaps most famously, Enzo Ferrari, with their start in motorsport.

"Alfa Romeo has long recognised that to be successful in motorsport, there have to be events in which to compete, therefore supporting motorsport is as natural as taking part in it," explains David Stone, General Manager for Alfa Romeo in Australia.  "For this reason, Alfa Romeo is very pleased to be able to support the 2008 WPS Bathurst Motor Festival in a very practical manner with the supply of our vehicles.

"Not wishing to be totally altruistic, it has to be said that the growing awareness, interest and public support for the WPS Bathurst Motor Festival is also very attractive to us as a business and our involvement provides an excellent demonstration of what Alfa Romeo products are capable of in terms of safety and performance. Given the growing success of the WPS Bathurst Motor Festival, we have little doubt that we will be followed by a number of leading companies in supporting this world-class motorsport event."
 

Event Director James O’Brien said he was pleased to be able to announce and welcome Alfa Romeo’s involvement for the 2008 WPS Bathurst Motor Festival. “Acclaimed for its top score safety ratings and innovation, the Alfa Romeo 159, supplied by David Stone and Alfa Romeo, is the ideal vehicle to guide the field during the WPS Bathurst Motor Festival,” said O’Brien.

Alfa Romeo is providing three cars for the Festival. Spending most of its time on-track will be the Alfa Romeo 159 JTS 3.2 Q4, the range-topping version of the Alfa Romeo 159. With its powerful 3.2 litre V6 engine and full-time four wheel drive system, allied to sophisticated chassis electronics, the Alfa will make an ideal safety car, capable of coping with whatever the fickle Bathurst weather can throw at the event. In addition, Alfa Romeo will provide two additional cars, the Brera JTS 3.2 Q4 and a 159 JTS 2.2, for the organisers to use in support of the event.

In addition to the WPS Bathurst 12 Hour there will also be 11 further races around the 6.21 km Mount Panorama circuit during the 2008 WPS Bathurst Motor Festival. Capacity fields of 55 Formula VEEs, 55 Holden HQs, 55 Australian Saloon Cars and 32 Commodore Cup Cars – which provided some great action at 2007’s Easter running of the Festival – will all be in on show throughout the weekend. The 2008 WPS Bathurst Motor Festival will be held over February 8-10 at Mount Panorama, Bathurst, concluding in the WPS Bathurst 12 Hour on Sunday February 10.