Brian Wolfe, director of Ford North America Motorsports, announced yesterday that the Ford Mustang will make its debut in NASCAR Nationwide competition in 2010, as part of the car-of-tomorrow rollout in the series.

Wolfe said:

We had been talking with NASCAR for some time about Mustang as part of its vision for a ‘muscle car’ rollout for the Nationwide Series. We both saw it as a way of differentiating the series from Sprint Cup.

Once the Mustang templates are finalized, parts production will begin, allowing teams to build and test the car later this fall.

Dodge is expected to run the Challenger as its Nationwide COT, but Chevy will continue to run its Impala SS. NASCAR officials wanted Chevy to run its Camaro.

Toyota is expected to run its Camry, which is also used in Sprint Cup, but they may use a Solara version of the car.

According to Jayski, the Nationwide COT is expected to rollout at Daytona in July. The plan was originally to have it debut in February, but after meeting with Nationwide Series owners, the plan was delayed. The reason for the delay was mainly the costs to implement the new car.

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR Vice President, Competition said:

We had a very productive meeting this morning (Tuesday, July 28) with the team owners from the NASCAR Nationwide Series about the rollout schedule for that series’ new race car. In the days ahead, we will digest what was discussed today and make a final decision on the rollout for next season with full anticipation of integrating the new car for the entire 2011 schedule.