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Why Grove Racing is debuting a new Ford Mustang

Why Grove Racing is debuting a new Ford Mustang

Kai Allen is set to debut the new machine, dubbed GR-04, at Hidden Valley next month.

The car replaces GR-03, which Allen recently scored his maiden Supercars race victory in at Ruapuna and will now become the team’s spare.

Grove committed to building the new car after it won the Bathurst 1000 last year with GR-01.

That car was driven by Matt Payne in the final rounds of the 2025 season before being parked and reunited with its panels from the Great Race.

“At the moment we don’t have a spare outside of the Bathurst car, which we don’t really want to use,” CEO Brenton Grove recently explained to Speedcafe.

“So a new car was always in the works post-Bathurst, we just delayed it once we decided to do the [Bathurst] 12 Hour.

“It was also a pretty hectic start to the season with all the upgrades that came through as a result of Triple Eight taking over the homologation team.

“So we put it on the back burner and will debut it in Darwin.”

Grove said GR-04 has been allocated to Allen as he had not previously been given a new machine.

The car Allen had been racing was debuted by Richie Stanaway in 2024 and inherited by the Mount Gambier native when he replaced the Kiwi last year.

The off-season retirement of Payne’s Bathurst winner meant he reverted to GR-02, the car in which he’d previously raced in 2023 and ’24.

Allen’s new car will receive a shakedown at Winton Motor Raceway ahead of its race debut at the June 19-21 event.

Two new Supercars debuted at Symmons Plains last weekend; Tickford rolling out a fresh Mustang for Cam Waters and Erebus a new Camaro for Cooper Murray.

This article first appeared on Speedcafe.com, a sister site to MotorRacing.com.

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