Up until now, Ford's entrant to the 2019 Supercars Championship has — quite literally — been masked and covered up.
The company gave us our first look at the Mustang Supercar in September last year, to a mixed applause. Now with new footage that's only just been published, we can get a better impression of what it looks like and what it sounds like.
We were among those to raise an eyebrow when the first Mustang images became available, crediting most of the odd proportions to the Mustang shape's need to conform to the Supercars 'Car of the Future' dimensional and aerodynamic regulations.
Read more: The new Ford Mustang Supercar looks weird — here's why
Naturally plenty of people in the Ford camp asked the audience to wait until they saw the car unmasked before casting judgement, and now that we've seen it without camouflage we can say ... that yeah, it's a bit tall.
The new Supercar — the first two-door coupé to appear in the series since the Group A era — does admittedly look much better in a racing livery of sorts.
But, the eagle eyed will notice a thick blue valance that skirts all the way around the pony car's base. While primarily the stripe gives the Mustang a retro aesthetic (drawing Cobra-style inspiration from other racers), it also helps rid the 'Stang of some of its vertical visual weight. They've also deployed the 'black is slimming' theory on the enormous rear wing.
At least ... that's how my eyes interpret it. Hopefully this is a design feature that we see throughout the Mustang livery range at Tickford Racing and Shell V-Power Racing. Both squads are set to reveal their liveries over the coming seven days; Tickford this weekend and DJR Team Penske on Monday.
Whether or not you're a fan of the looks, the Mustang is an important beast because it should give the blue oval an injection of competitiveness across the board. Yes, Scott McLaughlin won last year's title, but he was a lone-ranger out of those aboard a Ford.
It's also marvellous to see Ford back on the grid in a factory capacity. Hopefully their faith in the sport combined with Holden's can see a few other manufacturers join the grid in coming years.
“This is an historic moment,” said Kay Hart, President and CEO of Ford Australia and New Zealand.
“To see the project come together has been incredibly exciting for everyone involved, and today marks the start of Mustang’s 2019 season. Mustang belongs on the track and everyone at Ford and our fans have been waiting for this moment.”
“I’m really proud of the team in North America, and I’m really proud of the team down in Australia,” added Ford Performance Motorsports Supervisor, Brian Novak.
“We use the same processes to develop the Supercar that we do the NASCAR Mustang, that we do the Mustang GT4, that we do the NHRA Funny Car Mustang. That development has been proven out through other programs – the Ford GT at Le Mans for example – and we then transfer that back, that knowledge, back to the road car.”