Ford is expected to continue racing the Taurus in NASCAR for 2005, though that car will be relegated largely to fleets, as the 2005 Ford Five Hundred sedan becomes the company's focus for the passenger-car market. Ford will not race the Five Hundred, but is expected to race the 2006 Ford Fusion, a Taurus-sized sedan based on the Mazda6 platform. That car was originally called the Ford Futura, but Pep Boys, the parts supplier, used the Futura name for its line of tires, and Ford and Pep Boys could not come to an agreement, even though the Futura name was used by Ford for a Falcon model. Ford already uses the name "Fusion" in Europe. The change to Fusion will go hand-in-hand with the 'car of tomorrow' being designed and tested by NASCAR.

redriderbob

 

This also means that the new Dodge Charger NASCAR for 2005 will only be ran for the 2005 season. Than a new Charger model, looking more like the production model will be in the field for 2006, going with the "Car of Tomorrow" deal!

What is "Car of Tomorrow"? Car of Tomorrow is new car designs from DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, and Ford Motor Company along w/ NASCAR which will start in 2006. The cars will be bigger, more boxy, and look more like the cars that the race cars are suppose to be if in production, like the current Intrepid, Monte Carlo, and Taurus. This will allow for safer racing, cars that people can say are just like the production models, and better racing. Similar to that of the 1980's!

redriderbob

 

That will be a nice change. Except for the general body type, today's NASCAR cars have virtually nothing in common with factory street cars. Take the body shell off and you have a totally different design than the "name" of the shell.

 

Ford should dump their taurus and go with their new 500. But even still, chrysler and dodge would still rule Nascar if they got that Hemi invovled.





-Matt-

 

Hemi in NASCAR. They learned that lesson[sm=trust_me.gif] years ago. It would be great to see but the GM guys started crying when they found out we were talking about it here in this post.

 

Cool news, Thanks Bob.


Ride Red