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Ford is talking up the Nascar switch in the USA.
The people who worry about the future of the Ford Falcon...
...should probably take a closer look at the latest Nascar racer for the blue oval brand.
It's based on the new Mondeo and looks both surprisingly normal and exceptionally tough.
Ford will switch to the new look for the 2013 Sprint Cup season in the USA, when Australia's Marcos Ambrose should be behind the wheel of one of the new-look racecars.
But there is more to the new Nascar than another racecar. The switch in 2013 is part of the global plan for the Mondeo and Fusion twins, as well as move towards Nacar racers that look more like their (distant) road car cousins.
It also shows how a Falcon could potentially look - if you squint a little - if Ford Motor Company in Detroit decides that the Australian car needs to be moved into the same global family as the next Mondeo and Fusion.
There is clear potential to do that, since the mechanical package under the new Mondeo-Fusion is capable of being stretched and tweaked into a size that would work for Australia. Other details? No-one knows.
But Ford is talking up the Nascar switch in the USA and describes the Fusion racer as "an effort to bring brand identity back to the sport".
”We wanted Fusion to be the car that helped return ‘stock car’ to Nascar," says Jamie Allison, the director of Ford Racing.
“I think fans, when they see the car, are just going to smile and cheer. There is just something natural about seeing race cars that look like cars in their driveways.” Development of the new Nascar was even led by Ford, instead of its race teams.
Ford Design Center staff led by Garen Nicoghosian, and Ford aerodynamicist Bernie Marcus spent a year ensuring the racer picks up the design elements from the road car instead of just looking light a high-speed garden shed with fake headlights and a Ford sticker plastered on the nose.
"It looks fun to drive and very much eager to go and tear up the track," says Nicoghosian.
