{"id":58376,"date":"2013-02-20T14:14:52","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T19:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=58376"},"modified":"2013-02-21T07:31:58","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T12:31:58","slug":"ford-putting-the-stock-back-into-stock-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2013\/02\/ford-putting-the-stock-back-into-stock-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford Putting the \u201cStock\u201d Back into Stock Cars"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ford wants its NASCAR entry to look at least a little bit more like a real Fusion sedan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What is today one of the most popular sporting events in America has some humble roots, NASCAR tracing back to the days when moonshiners would tune up their cars to outrun the \u201crevenuers\u201d and then give each a challenge to see who was fastest.<\/p>\n

But the days when the familiar sporting event could claim to field \u201cstock cars\u201d is long past. When NASCAR organizers began ordering the switch to the so-called \u201cCar of the Future,\u201d a few years back, the design may have been safer and better on track, but about the only thing it had in common with the cars of today were decals designed to make it look, sort of, like the Fords, Chevrolets and Toyotas you\u2019d find in a showroom.<\/p>\n

That triggered a backlash from fans, something that was measurable in both race attendance and TV viewership, and it has forced NASCAR and its teams to do a little soul-searching \u2013 as Ford is demonstrating with its latest stock car entry which actual shares at least a few body panels with an actual Fusion sedan.<\/p>\n

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Free Subscription!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is a day so many of us at Ford and Ford fans have been waiting for,\u201d said Jamie Allison, director, Ford Racing. \u201cWhen we first unveiled the 2013 NASCAR Fusion in Charlotte in January 2012, we said we wanted to help return the \u2018stock car back to NASCAR.\u2019 Without question, with this car, we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

The high-dollar motorsports league isn\u2019t totally returning to its roots. You won\u2019t see bootleggers out on the track, and under the skin the new cars are still what NASCAR refers to as the \u201cGen 6\u201d race car. But manufacturers now can customize 13 individual exterior surfaces to bring the look and shape of their entries a bit closer to their production models \u2013 without having to resort to lame tricks like decaled headlamps.<\/p>\n

Ford experimented with the idea of going back to stock car design in the secondary Nationwide racing series several years ago and \u201csaw the exciting reaction from the fans, and even from people who didn\u2019t follow NASCAR,\u201d said Allison, adding that it showed the maker that \u201cWe were on the right track,\u201d quite literally.<\/p>\n

Ford has spent about two years developing the new NASCAR Fusion, revealing it to NASCAR and its team members in June 2011 and then giving the new design a public preview in January 2012 at the Detroit Auto Show.\u00a0 It has continued tinkering with the car, focusing especially on aerodynamics as that can make or break the chances of a race car moving at 200 mph.<\/p>\n

The Fusion will make a high-profile racing debut at this coming weekend\u2019s opening NASCAR race at the Daytona International Speedway. It will face a tough challenge from Chevrolet, notably from the GoDaddy.com team led by Danica Patrick who has become the first woman ever to land the pole position in the historic race.<\/p>\n

But Ford is confident it won\u2019t be embarrassed, the new NASCAR Fusion being used by such prestige tames as Roush Fenway Racing, Penske Racing, Wood Brothers Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, Germain Racing and Front Row Motorsports.<\/p>\n

Ford cars have taken the checkered flag at three of the last four Daytona races.<\/p>\n

The decision to go with the new design isn\u2019t altruistic.\u00a0 While Ford officials may appreciate NASCAR heritage they also want to maintain the popularity of the sport \u2013 and hope that this spills over to their brand.\u00a0 In recent years, it\u2019s become less clear that the old adage, \u201cWin on Sunday, sell on Monday,\u201d still holds true.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, \u201cWe know nearly 40 percent of new car intenders are race fans, and of those, almost 84 percent follow NASCAR,\u201d said Allison. \u201cRacing helps drive our business. We know Ford race fans consider, shop and buy more Fords than the general public. So bringing back this kind of relevancy to NASCAR is the X factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Incidentally, while cars like the Gen 6 Fusion may look more like street models then they have in some years, don\u2019t expect to find one at the showroom.\u00a0 Under the skin they use an entirely different sort of construction \u2013 as you\u2019d expect of vehicles that often tangle with one another at well into triple-digit speeds. Even the engines are unique.\u00a0 NASCAR only last year began using a version of fuel injection, for example, a technology that the last U.S. street vehicle abandoned in the early 1990s. But the Sprint Cup cars still feature live rear axles and four-speed gearboxes, technologies generally considered way out of date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASCAR has some humble roots, tracing back to when moonshiners would try to outrun the “revenuers” – and each other. But in recent years, the cars haven’t looked much like what fans drive. That’s about to change, Ford unveiling a new NASCAR Fusion that looks a lot more like the real thing, says TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58376"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=58376"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=58376"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=58376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}