Will Brown will make his Australian Production Cars debut in Round 2 at Winton Motor Raceway.

Brown will reunite with production car stalwart Rod Salmon, the two having combined with Keith Kassulke to win the Invitational class in a MARC Focus V8 at this year’s Bathurst 12 Hour.

The drive comes due to the unavailability of Salmon’s regular co-driver, Nathan Antunes, and will be Brown’s fifth series in two years.

The Toowoomba driver has stepped up to the Dunlop Super2 Series with Eggleston Motorsport after winning the 2016 CAMS Jayco Australian Formula 4 Championship and Toyota 86 Racing Series, and finishing runner-up in Australian Formula Ford.

“Will Brown is an up and coming superstar – he is the F4 and Toyota 86 Champion and is currently driving in the Dunlop Super2 Series,” said Salmon.

“Earlier this year I drove to a class victory with him in the Bathurst 12 Hour in the MARC car.

“He really impressed me with his speed and maturity, as well as the fact that he is just a great young man.

“I think he has a real future in our sport and I am pleased to be able to give him the opportunity to show what he has in the APC.

“We are not going there to fill in the field that is for sure, we will be looking to be on the podium.

The 18-year-old is currently fifth in the Super2 standings after an impressive start to his rookie season.

Salmon and Brown will drive the former’s Skwirk.com Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X, despite debuting a brand-new Mercedes Benz A45 AMG at the Bathurst 6 Hour in April.

That Mercedes has been sidelined as Salmon’s Power-On Racing Team awaits new parts from Germany after technical issues during the Easter enduro.

“The new car is just brilliant and I really enjoyed racing it at Bathurst, but unfortunately with around half an hour to go the 4WD system gave way and we were left with only two-wheel drive,” Salmon explained.

“This leaves us waiting for parts to come all the way from Germany and there just isn’t enough time to have the car ready in time for Winton next week.”

Round 2 of Australian Production Cars will be run over a pair of 300km races at Winton from June 9-11.