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Ryan Story has explained how the Ford Mustang will be made to fit Supercars’ Car of the Future chassis.
The introduction of the Mustang will require changes to the body shell relative to that of the road car in order to fit the two-door coupe on the rollcage.
Whereas the FGX Falcon has to be shortened, with around 100mm taken out of the length of the rear doors and roof, the Mustang will have to be stretched and the roofline made higher.
Story reiterated that preliminary work has already been done on altering the proportions of the Mustang to meet the requirement.
“There’s a huge amount of work for us to do to get the two-door car happening here and to make a Mustang into a magnificent Supercar,” Shell V-Power Racing’s managing director told Fox Sports’ Supercars Trackside.
“The actual design of (the current Falcon) dates back to 2008, or at least elements of it do, and some of the challenges we had with the car were to make changes to the actual length of the roof and the length of the rear door, and to this day we continue to cut up to 100mm out of both of these components to actually make it fit the control Supercars chassis.
“To make a Mustang fit the control Supercars chassis, we need to lengthen the car and raise its profile just a small amount to ensure we clear that main roll hoop, and we can do that.
“The design work that’s been (put) into the car so far is really focused on that side of things in particular, and we’ll continue to work from where we are now, but we know we can turn this thing into an absolute winner.”
Story also explained that DJR Team Penske and Tickford Racing would guide the development process in conjunction with Ford Performance in the United States, including taking advantage of the latter’s CFD capabilities.
“We basically direct the traffic, that’s the best way to look at it,” he added.
“We do the bulk of the design work here and then the CFD element will be done by Ford Performance in the United States.
“Between our team and Tickford we’ve got a tremendous degree and tremendous amount of resources and a tremendous knowledge of Supercars and what makes a good Supercar, and we’ve got guys like Ludo Lacroix, Nathaniel Osborne; people who have been involved directly in the homologation of cars in the past.”
He did, however, remain noncommittal regarding when the Mustang Supercar would make its first public appearance.
The car has been mooted to run demonstration laps at Bathurst, akin to Triple Eight’s Sandman Commodore’s presence at Mount Panorama with V6 twin-turbo power last year.
Story did not rule out the date, but did not confirm either.
“There’s a heck of a lot of design work to go into this thing before that but if it happens, it happens.
“But it certainly won’t be done in such a way that compromises all the rest of the work we have to do.”
