Ford Mustang remains world's favourite sports car

The Ford Mustang remained the world's best-selling sports car in 2020, with the Blue Oval shifting an incredible 80,577 coupe and convertibles.

That's a sizeable drop over the 102,090 examples of the Ford Mustang sold before the pandemic in 2019, and well below the 113,066 shifted in 2018.

But according to analyst IHS Markit, the Ford pony car still holds a dominant 15.1 per cent share of the global sports car market, up from 14.8 per cent in 2019.

Unsurprisingly, the Ford Mustang's sales performance in the US continues to be the main reason behind its 'global' success, with some 61,090 finding homes there last year – which was actually a hefty 15.7 per cent down over the previous year.

The fast Ford coupe and convertible is most popular in Texas, where 8600 Mustangs were sold.

So far in 2021, Ford says it delivered 17,274 Mustangs in the first quarter alone – a drop of around 4.4 per cent.

But the car-maker hopes its continued success in markets like Hungary, the Netherlands and Denmark, which all saw a big increase in demand in 2020, will bolster sales this year and enable the Mustang to hold on to its number-one spot.

The Mustang is the most popular sports car in Australia by a long shot. Last year, Ford shifted 2923 units, down 26 per cent on 2019. So far this year, 309 pony cars have found buyers, down 8.8 per cent on the first quarter of 2020.