VIDEO: Work underway on Kelly Racing Mustang build

Preparations for Kelly Racing’s move to Ford Mustangs for 2020 are in full swing with the squad working ‘around the clock’ to prepare two new look cars.

Last month the squad announced it will downsize from four to two entries next season as part of a partnership with Ford and Ford Performance to replace its Nissan Altimas with Mustangs.

The Braeside operation has offered a unique insight into the project through a series of behind the scenes videos with the first episode launching today.

Switching manufacturers after seven seasons running Altimas has provided the squad with plenty of work to do in the off season to prepare cars for Rick Kelly and Andre Heimgartner.

At the moment the team has one incomplete spare chassis which is being converted over to a Mustang, and one brand-new Car of the Future chassis in the build.

Converting the spare Altima chassis does require some work in removing Nissan specific parts to prepare for the new Ford components.

Meanwhile, Kelly Racing is also undertaking its own in-house engine program which has seen its design team working on forging new components in order to fire up its first engine next month.

The squad has received some assistance from Ford but in order to speed up the process it has acquired a 2012 spec Stone Brothers Racing Ford engine to use for testing on the dyno.

“This is an extremely exciting phase for our business as we transition from the Nissan Altimas over to the Ford Performance Mustangs which are much newer and have been a very competitive package this year,” said team owner Todd Kelly.

“We wanted to show the fans and educate them on the whole process that’s involved in bringing two Mustang Supercars to life as well as our own Kelly Racing Ford V8 engine.

“The Kelly Racing way has always been to utilise the facility and the highly skilled people working here at the team to do as much in-house as we can and during this important Mustang build phase we wanted to show all of the various departments we have here and showcase their talent while providing some technical insight to our fans.”

“We know we’ve got a lot of work to do in order to have two complete cars and a spare ready for Adelaide next year, and everyone here is working around the clock not only to ensure we finish the year strong with the Nissans but to ensure we have the best chance of being successful when we roll out for round one next year with these new Mustangs.”

“I hope the fans can get something out of the content we’ll be rolling out over the next few months and we can’t wait to see their support from the stands when our two new Mustangs hit the track.”