Ford announces switch to Mustang in ’19

and currently the Fusion.

“This announcement makes me very happy,” said Edsel B. Ford II, a member of Ford Motor Company’s board of directors, in a statement. “Mustang is a car that is woven into the fabric of our country, and it’s only right that we put it on the track in NASCAR’s most visible series. I can’t wait.”

In recent years, the trend of NASCAR manufacturers releasing new bodies has been heavily discussed, especially given how Martin Truex Jr. drove the brand new Camry to a championship in its first season in 2017. Brad Keselowski, who made the championship four in 2017 driving a Ford, has been especially vocal about the need for a new Ford body.

But if anything, Ford has performed well this season in the current Fusion. Kevin Harvick won three straight races in it in the season’s opening weeks, and four of the top five drivers in the standings — Joey Logano, Harvick, Clint Bowyer, Keselowski — are Ford drivers (the lone exception being Kyle Busch atop the list).

Thirteen teams — including Penske, Wood Brothers and Stewart-Haas Racing — drive Fords.

Roger Penske, whose Penske Racing team drives Fords, originally let slip that a new Ford body was coming in 2018 at the Daytona 500 in February, but the official announcement did not come until Tuesday.

Ford has not finished testing the new Mustang, although a formal submission is due to NASCAR this summer. Then the body will be publicly unveiled at some point thereafter, with the goal for it to be ready for the 2019 Daytona 500.