Nissan has crashed Holden and Ford's party by announcing they will join the V8 Supercars competition.
The battle between Holden and Ford has been central to the success of the sport for the past 20 years but that's about to change under the championship's new 'Car of the Future' scheme that allows overseas brands to compete.
The Japanese carmaker will join the battle from 2013 and more brands including Chrysler, Hyundai, Kia and Toyota could follow.
"This is the biggest change in Australian motorsport in 20 years. It's huge," V8 Supercars commission chairman Mark Skaife said.
"My promise was there would be one extra brand in 2013 and probably two or three in 2014. We're on track for that."
Nissan will team up with the four-car Kelly Racing which currently races Holden Commodores but without any factory support from Holden.
"Rick (Kelly) and I have had one clear goal that we have been striving for since we started Kelly Racing. That was to become a benchmark race-winning team with factory support," the Mildura-based team's part owner Todd Kelly said.
"We couldn't be happier to be a factory Nissan team and factory Nissan drivers."
It is not known what model Nissan will use for its V8 Supercar entry.
It has mooted plans to replace its mid-to-large size passenger car the Maxima with the similarly sized Altima in 2013.
Nissan last ran a factory team with Gibson Motorsport and four-wheel drive Nissan GT-Rs in 1992 when they claimed the Australian Touring Car Championship with Skaife and the Bathurst 1000 with Skaife and Jim Richards.
Nissan, who will pour $15 million into their Australian venture, have achieved worldwide motorsport success in the past 12 months.
They won last year's FIA GT1 World Championship with a Nissan GT-R driven by Germans Lucas Luhr and Michael Krumm as well as the Japanese SuperGT Championship and took a 1-2 finish in the LMP2 class at the Le Mans 24 Hour.