Ford has officially kicked off right-hand-drive production of the Mustang this month, with the first UK and Irish customers due to receive their cars in November. The Flatrock plant in Michigan has started building the cars, the first-ever original factory right-hand-drive Mustangs in the car’s 50-plus-year history, in a batch of 2,000, all of which have already been ordered and sold. The waiting list for a right-hand-drive Mustang already stretches out to April of next year.
Interestingly, it’s not the more efficient 2.3-litre EcoBoost engine that’s doing the selling. Of the first RHD Mustangs, almost three quarters of orders have been for the full-on 5.0-litre V8 engine, in spite of its 25mpg thirst and ludicrous tax costs. Those figures are for the UK, and no such figures are yet available for Ireland, but it seems likely that the EcoBoost will take rather a larger portion of Irish Mustang sales. 80 per cent of UK orders are for the fastback coupe.
“Even though the car has never been sold in Europe, the Mustang’s reputation for performance and its iconic status as a symbol of the free, open road is well implanted in the psyche of motorists across Europe,” said Ciarán McMahon, chairman and managing director of Ford Ireland. “The new Mustang is modern, technologically advanced and forward-looking, without compromising on the heritage that has inspired Ford customers for generations.”