Twin-turbocharged V6 Ford Mustang to race in 2019

Update, April 17: Ford Australia is streaming live the announcement of its Ford Performance brand, the reintroduction of the Fiesta ST in 2019 and the company’s return to the Supercars racing category.

Join us Live for a special Ford Performance announcement. Posted by Ford Australia on Monday, April 16, 2018

Ford will tomorrow announce its return to Australia’s pre-eminent motorsport category in 2019 with a racing version of the Mustang.

And in a shock twist, the Ford Mustang is likely to be powered by a twin-turbocharged V6 rather than a V8, although the exact timing of this is unknown.

The news comes just days after Holden announced it was suspending a program to develop a turbocharged V6 engine for its new ZB Commodore, which has leapt out of the blocks and dominated the early exchanges in the 2018 championship.

The confirmation of Mustang and the return of Ford is a massive boost for Supercars, as the Blue Oval teams currently campaign the Ford Falcon FG X, which went out of production in 2016.

The third car on the grid is the Nissan Altima, which is also no longer sold in Australia. Nissan’s whole future in Supercars is up for review this year and it’s not looking good given poor results so far in 2018.

A lot of detail about the plans for Mustang and how it and its engine will be developed for Supercars is yet to break loose.

But we do know Ford will be represented in the program by its global motorsport and hot tuner division, Ford Performance, while the two main Ford Supercars teams, Tickford Racing and DJR Team Penske, will play an important role.

The development of the Mustang’s aerodynamic package and the engine will be the key technical challenges for the program.

The two-door body is the first to be introduced in the locally-developed Supercars category since it debuted in the early 1990s as a Holden Commodore v Ford Falcon formula.

Unlike Ford’s global Mustang GT4 racer (pictured), it will be massaged to fit on the standard ‘Gen2’ spaceframe chassis and wheelbase that all Supercars are based on.

Ford has been out of Supercars since 2015, when it withdrew the last skerricks of its support for what was then called Prodrive Racing Australia (now Tickford Racing).

Its return is unlikely to involve a large direct financial contribution. Instead, it will primarily include significant technical support through Ford Performance and the local arm’s license to race the Mustang bodyshape.

While the Falcon has been the focus of much of Ford’s touring car racing activity in Australia, the Mustang also has a mighty history here.

Ian ‘Pete Geoghegan won four consecutive Australian Touring Car Championships in the 1960s in first generation Mustangs with Norm Beechey adding another in in the same era.

Allan Moffat’s Coca-Cola Trans-Am Mustang was a star of the early 1970s and Jim Richards’ Sidchrome Mustang a Sports Sedan hero of the late 1970s.

More recently Dick Johnson raced a Mustang during the Group A era.