Ford Mustang

The Ford Mustang is an American car model manufactured by Ford that is used in the NASCAR Cup Series and the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

Ford Performance made a grand introduction of its 2019 Mustang with a drifting-themed video of the car getting a workout at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano helped to put the specially equipped Mustang through its paces. Vaughn Gittin Jr. from the drifting realm joined in the video shoot, too.

The infield portion of the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course was a perfect setting for the first full look of the past year’s car in the NASCAR Cup Series.

The Mustang has a long history in racing. Its first race was in 1964, when it was a surprise winner of the Tour de France Automobile, a 10-day, 4,000-mile suffer fest. The Mustang has also competed in SCCA, Trans-Am, IMSA, NHRA, Formula Drift and the NASCAR Xfinity Series (since 2011). But it has never competed at NASCAR’s highest level. That had changed since its' debut in the Daytona 500 on Feb. 17, 2019.

The Cup-level Mustang is the result of collaboration between NASCAR, Ford performance and design teams and NASCAR teams that field entries for the famed blue oval. Designers and engineers worked hard to create a car that will be both competitive and remain true to its heritage

For a while, stock cars looked sort of the same, as NASCAR continued to try to keep the competition even among manufacturers. Long-time fans made it clear they did not like that; a Chevy should look like a Chevy and a Ford like a Ford, and the Toyotas should get lost.

Then General Motors reshaped its Cup-level stock car for 2018 and changed its name from the Chevrolet SS to a Camaro ZL1, the bodacious muscle car. Ford followed, changing its Fusion model into its muscle-car model, the Mustang, for Cup racing.

A Ford Mustang also won two of the three Cup races it was in this year, far outpacing the Camaro’s performance after it debuted in 2018. Austin Dillon won the Daytona 500, the 2018 season opener in a Camaro, but a Chevy did not win on the Cup level again until August.

And the only Chevy driver to win a race after Dillon was Chase Elliott. Only six Camaro drivers made the 16-car playoffs, and none of the six made it to the four-car finals.

The coup de grace: Joey Logano won the 2018 title in a Ford Fusion, the first Cup title for Ford since 2004, and Brad Keselowski and Logano won early this year at Atlanta and Las Vegas. Four Ford drivers, and one Chevy driver, were among the top seven in the standings.