Local Ford Mustang wait list already 12 months

Throw down your hard-earned for a Ford Mustang today and you won’t be riding your new Pony away until the middle of 2016.

Ford Australia has already taken over 2000 deposits for its Yank muscle car six months ahead of its December arrival, and 'Stang buyers who haven’t got in early will now be stung with a wait.

Early adopters are shunning the four-cylinder Mustang Ecoboost, too, with the cheapest $44,990 manual coupe recording the smallest slice of the Pony pie at just 2.9 per cent. Even the flagship $63,990 V8 Convertible is snaring 12.8 per cent of orders.

The $57,490 V8 Coupe automatic is galloping to a 42.3 per cent range lead, slightly ahead of the $2500-cheaper manual version at 33 per cent that itself is 10 times ahead of the Ecoboost Convertible auto (3.3 per cent). The most popular Ecoboost is the coupe auto, snaring 5.8 per cent of the initial allocation.

Despite the four-banger-buyer no-show, Ford Australia brand communications manager Neil McDonald says the share is expected and that the Ecoboost will improve.

“Initial orders go for the high-series mix (which mimics what happens with the rest of the Ford range) but we expect the EcoBoost to perform well once the initial take up of V8s from enthusiasts and early adopters [slows],” McDonald says.

As far as future allocation for our market goes, the brand communications manager says the local arm has secured “a healthy number for 2015 but … [those] who didn’t get in early face a wait because of the enormous demand for the car in the various global markets.”

“If a customer orders one today, they would expect a mid-2016 arrival,” he adds.

That means Henry expects to deliver over 2000 four-cylinder and V8 Mustang models to owners before the first half of the year when the next allocation arrives.

At an average of about 333 per month, the US-made Mustang would be dangerously close to toppling the slow-selling locally-built Falcon that notched up only 381 sales in January (but has since been boosted by extra XR8 production).

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