It has been a long time coming, but the Ford Mustang has finally arrived in Australia, bringing to an end a decades-long drought of the American muscle car. Now a truly global product offered in both left and right-hand drive configurations, the Ford Mustang is ready to take on the Land Down Under…just not all at once.
The first batch of sixth-generation Mustang have landed in Australia, and the waiting list to get one of the right-hand drive muscle cars now extends well into 2017. If patience is a virtue, then we should see some real saints driving right-hand drive Mustangs about a year from now.
A cargo ship carrying the first wave of 2016 Mustangs landed at Melbourne’s Appleton Docks on Wednesday morning, with another three ships following close behind. Ford recieved over 20,000 expressions of interest in the Mustang from Aussies, with 4,000 deposits snapping up the entire allocation for 2016. Anybody placing an order today won’t get their Mustang until early 2017 at the soonest, unless Ford increases output of its in-demand muscle machine.
In traditional Aussie fashion, 86% of buyers opted for the 5.0 liter V8 over the base 2.3 liter EcoBoost engine, with the fastback having an 80% take rate over the convertible. Pricing in Oz starts at $44,990AUS for the EcoBoost model and $54,990AUS for the GT, which translates to about $33,000 and $40,000 U.S., respectively. While Ford might be closing down its domestic manufacturing operations in Australia, finally making the Mustang available to diehard fans in Oz is a pretty good trade, all things considered.
The universe has a way of maintaining balance, we suppose.