Ford: Rangers sell when Mustangs win

Putting a Mustang on the finisher’s podium on the weekend is helping Ford sell Ranger Raptors on weekdays, the Blue Oval says. Even in an era where the options for reaching out to consumers are more diverse than ever – and principally in the digital realm – the old ‘Win on Sunday, sell on Monday’ mantra behind motorsport still has significant relevance to the Australian market.

Speaking at the launch of Ford’s global motorsport programme, local boss Andrew Birkic said the fanbase for motor racing has significant overlay with the target demographic for the brand’s core offerings.

“The data is pretty clear that people who follow motorsport have a higher propensity to drive new pickups, utes and SUVs,” Birkic told carsales. “All you need to do is go to Bathurst and go up on the mountain, walk through there and have a look at what people are driving, and it’s very, very clear why we do it.”

It’s a sentiment backed up by Mark Rushbrook, global director of Ford Performance.

“Definitely, there is a strong brand affiliation between Ford owners and watching Ford Mustangs win and win races and win championships,” Rushbrook said.

“It’s not necessarily a Mustang winning on Sunday and selling a Mustang on Monday, but there definitely is the brand affiliation that you can win with Mustang and sell a Ford Ranger on Monday. There’s definitely that connection, and that’s part of why we go racing. It’s part of who we are, part of the DNA of Ford Motor Company.”

Yet while participating in motorsport is a notoriously costly exercise, Birkic said the benefits outweigh the financial burden.

“We have a very clear strategy where we're very precise with how we want to spend our precious dollars, and we believe [motorsport] is a really strong investment,” he said. “We look at the ROIs and yeah, we believe it’s a strong play, and it’s important in terms of brand connection. We are an emotional brand, we don’t want to hide from that.”

And for the 2026 Supercars season, Ford Australia is preparing to make every dollar of its motorsport spending count. The company announced today that it has inked a deal with the dominant Triple Eight Race Engineering that will see the team ditch its current Chevrolet Camaro-based supercar in favour of Ford’s race-going Mustang, while also taking over the role of homologating Ford’s Mustang for the Supercars series from Dick Johnson Racing in 2026.

Wearing prominent Redbull/Ampol livery, the Triple Eight Mustang will contest the 2026 season and hope to repeat the team’s successes from its previous partnerships with Ford, when it won three back-to-back Bathurst 1000 titles between 2006 and 2008 with a Falcon-based car.

With the team having finished the 2024 season with its Camaros taking both first and second place outright, Ford is likely hoping that some of Triple Eight’s magic will rub off on its Mustang racer, and help fend off the new challenger – Toyota’s GR Supra – which will also contest the 2026 season with at least four cars.

In the new car sales race, the road-going Mustang is already bathing in champagne. Having finished 2024 with 1465 cars sold, the Mustang easily took top spot in the mainstream sports car segment, finishing well ahead of Japanese rivals like the Subaru BRZ, Toyota GR 86, Mazda MX-5 and Nissan Z.

What’s more remarkable is that the Mustang did so on only a few months’ worth of sales, with the new S660-generation Mustang only having launched in Australia in September. Shipping delays due to recent port strikes have also constrained supply, and while the Mustang’s 432 deliveries in December 2024 were certainly healthy numbers for a sports car, that model’s true sales potential has yet to reveal itself.

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