Automobile manufacturer Ford has revealed Fordzilla, a new esports racing team.

Announced during Ford’s Gamescom conference, the new esports team is being created in partnership with Microsoft (not Mozilla) to compete in Forza Motorsport 7. Sports investment is no longer new to esports, with basketball and football sides taking an interest in the world of competitive gaming, and car manufacturers are no different. Honda has partnered with Team Liquid, and BMW with Cloud9, but Fordzilla will be the first esports team owned and operated by a car manufacturer.

“We at Ford have a racing pedigree that others can only envy,” Ford of Europe’s Roelant de Waard said in the release. “Now is the time to take that know-how and apply it to the world of esports – capturing the imagination of a new generation of virtual racing drivers, inspiring them to take a ride in one of our Ford Performance vehicles.”

For the time being, Fordzilla will be looking to limit itself to the world of Forza Motorsport 7, but other racing games are also on the menu for the future if the venture proves successful. In the reveal video and press release, Ford announced that they’ll be looking to recruit players for national sides from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, as well as a European star side. 

It sounds like Fordzilla will comprise multiple teams then, potentially hosting their own league of competition between them. In 2020 they’ll aim to start competition, though details of what tournaments will be taking place or the prize money at stake have yet to be revealed. It’s an extremely unusual arrangement, which means we're all the more interested to see what Fordzilla has planned for the coming year.

As for players? Fordzilla has just entered the recruitment stage, but the announcement video confirms that streamer and YouTuber Angelo “aSmoogl” Bülow will be taking up the mantle of Germany’s team captain. We’ll have more news for you on Fordzilla as it arrives, but for now you can check out more details on the Ford Europe blog.