There’s nothing funny about this one. Ford Performance is updating its NHRA Funny Car body for the first time in a decade. It’s finally getting the look of the new 2019 Mustang.

While sending a 10,000 hp monster down a quarter mile in under four seconds doesn’t sound like much of a wind tunnel exercise, Ford says that it really is. The team worked with Ford Performance to make some big changes. More downforce and minimal drag were the name of the game but there were more things under consideration.

“There are a lot of improvements to the car structurally,” said driver Bob Tasca III told NHRA.com. “That’s something we’ve struggled with over the years. If you look at the car in the super slo-mo cameras you’ll see it start to warp and change its shape, which is not what you want. If you think about a bullet, it doesn’t change its shape as it goes through the air and you want a car to do the same thing.”

Instead of a full-size model, Ford Performance used computers and miniatures to design the car, which they call the most advanced Mustang to hit a drag strip.

“We started with this project in October 2017,” said Bernie Marcus, Ford Performance aerodynamicist. “Design begins with the use of computational fluid dynamics, which then turns into building parts to wind tunnel test on a scale model of the car. Once all those parts are verified, we produce a full-size model.”

The car should hit the strip in pre-season testing this week in Phoenix. That’s before the start of the NHRA season in February at the Winternationals in Pomona, California.

[source: NHRA.com]

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