Ford concedes Mustang has hit sales peak

Ford Australia is expecting a significant uptick in Mustang sales with the rollout of a heavily updated 2018 model next month, but executives concede frenetic demand from 2017 may have passed.

Incredibly, Ford sold more than 9000 Mustangs last year in Australia -- more than any other right-hand drive market -- helping deliver the Blue Oval a huge sales and profit turnaround in the wake of its Australian manufacturing shutdown.

In fact, the Mustang – Ford Australia’s second best seller after the Ranger -- now forms a key foundation for Ford’s global sales as it retracts from other passenger car segments.

In Australia, official sales data shows that Mustang registrations are down almost 40 per cent year-to-date in 2018, in part because Ford turned the tap off on deliveries with the impending arrival of the mid-life update.

But with 2285 sold to May this year, the Mustang is still Australia’s top-selling sports car and remains far more popular than much cheaper rivals like the Hyundai Veloster, Mazda MX-5, Subaru BRZ and Toyota 86.

And Ford Australia president Graeme Whickman is tipping healthy interest in the updated model.

“Like anything we’re coming to the end of the cycle. We’re less than a month and a half away from seeing new Mustang models on the road so it’s a pretty normal curve,” Whickman said.

As for whether Ford can reach the sales heights of the original, sixth-generation Mustang released in 2016?

“We sold 9000 Mustangs last year. We were between four and five times the volume of Britain, so it was a big year. We had a lot of pent-up demand,” Whickman explained.

“Maybe last year was a banner year, maybe we won’t get to that level. But I think there’s enough demand that we’ll see respectable numbers. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get to 36 or 48 months in a row being the sports car leader in this market?”.

Launched at Tailem Bend in South Australia this week, the 2018 Mustang brings to the table worthy upgrades across the performance, tech and safety spectrums.

It lands in showrooms from July, coinciding with price increases of between $4000 and $9000 depending on model.

The general manager of Ford Australia’s marketing arm, Danni Winter, agreed the Mustang’s frenetic growth would likely plateau as more stock of the new model becomes available.

“I don’t think the fad … has worn off. We experienced a fantastic peak of sales in 2017, where we carried over a significant number of orders into the year that we weren’t able to fill out of the plant in right-hand drive,” she said.

“We definitely had an awesome result in 2017 and we’ve obviously been able to bring our stocks down in 2018 and had a much smaller result in May as we continue to run down stock of that old model and prepare for the new model to be on sale in July.

“I think we’ll see sales growth this year but I don’t think we’ll get up to the 2017 levels, which was unprecedented demand with the first Mustang model to come into the market.”

The reason behind Mustang’s popularity is no secret. Following the death of locally-developed sedans, the pony car finds itself in an unoccupied pocket of the market as the only V8, rear-drive coupe. And, importantly, one still offered with a manual transmission.

If you take the word of Ford execs, the Mustang’s ‘sports car for the people’ origins have never shone brighter.