It looks like Ford’s decision to offer the Mustang Worldwide is paying off. Last year Ford began offering the Mustang in 81 additional countries, officially making it globally available for the first time in history. 25 of those new markets are receiving another Mustang first – right hand drive. Ford says they have already sold around 27,000 right hand drive Mustangs since their introduction last year.
Colin Massey, general sales manager at Jennings Ford Middlesbrough in northeastern England said "Mustang has been a huge success for us. We are still seeing a steady demand for the Mustang and are currently averaging between three and four orders per week." That’s a pretty good sales record given that many of those cars are the V8 model, which doesn’t offer much in fuel economy, in a country where fuel prices average roughly triple the price we pay here in the U.S.
The Mustang is so popular in some countries that the backlog can be a long as 10 months, but that doesn’t seem to have dampened the demand. The Mustang is already the second best-selling Ford vehicle in Australia and the top selling sports car in Saudi Arabia and South Africa. It’s even a heavy hitter in Germany amongst rivals like BMW and Audi, selling around 6,000 units this past year.
Carl Widmann, Mustang Chief Engineer said "We are always trying to eke out one more right-hand-drive unit if we can. We've exceeded expectations overall. We're getting happy customers across a lot of different regions."
While Mustang sales continue to grow in new markets overseas, it's blowing away the competition in the U.S. Mustang sales surpassed the Chevy Camaro last year for the first time since 2009 and it hasn’t lost the lead, even as Chevy rolled out their sixth generation Camaro last fall.
The Mustang's share of the midsize sports-car segment for 2016 has surged from 37 percent in 2014 to 46 percent so far this year. Through August, the Mustang leads Camaro sales in the U.S. by nearly 33,000 units. That’s such a wide gap they could stop selling the Mustang right now and potentially still outsell the Camaro.
Overseas markets still account for a small piece of the Mustang's total sales overall, with about 80 percent of the cars staying stateside. But Ford sees the Mustang's growing presence in more than 100 countries outside North America as a way to spread brand awareness to consumers worldwide.
