2023 Ford Mustang Australia, Redesign, Engine and Release Date – The all-new 2023 Ford Mustang has been confirmed for Australia, with the carmaker revealing timings for the launch of its seventh-generation pony car.
As well as sharing plans for the new Mustang’s launch, Ford has teased some interesting details about its engine and gearbox.
The 2023 Ford Mustang is expected to receive a complete overhaul, consisting of a thorough redesign and re-engineering, representing the seventh generation of the iconic Mustang nameplate. The current Mustang is pretty safe for a sports car, with standard active safety features like automatic emergency braking, active lane control, automatic high beams, and blind-spot monitoring, while features like adaptive cruise control and parking sensors are optional.
In terms of crash testing, NHTSA has given the Mustang a five-star rating while IIHS labeled it “Good” in all areas except the small-overlap test, where the vehicle only managed to achieve an “Acceptable” score. Ford’s vehicle director for icons and Ford Performance, Ali Jammoul, is in Australia for the final sign-off of the second-generation Ranger Raptor and he told Wheels the new Mustang is almost complete.
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2023 Ford Mustang Australia Redesign
The rear of the car is wearing much more camouflage, so it’s harder to tell what design differences we’ll see here. Camouflage isn’t too heavy around the taillights, where it’s clear the S650 will retain the three-bar vertical design of its predecessor.
What we need to do, though, is make the V8 more environmentally friendly and you need to make sure it’s regulatory compliant. And that’s absolutely something we have worked on and will certainly have in the next-generation Mustang.
The first takeaway is that the front end appears more angular and streamlined. This is evident in the steeper windshield angle and elongated hood. The nose also seems a bit flatter than the outgoing S550, and Ford appears to have added thinner headlights.
For example, the 2021 GT500 has a two-caliper setup, but the second is for the electronic emergency brake. While there’s no way to tell what kind of brake system this new mule has, the presence of a second caliper indicates it could be one of the first performance-focused S650 models.
2023 Ford Mustang Australia Engine
“Engine selection is really important, right,” he replies when we ask about the move towards electrification and whether the V8 is here to stay. “And what we pride ourselves on is giving the customer a lot of choice and selection to choose from. Clearly, the V8 has been really successful in Mustang and it has a certain image that our customers associate with.And there’s good news for V8 fans – while an electrified Mustang is almost inevitable, the 5.0-liter V8 will continue. It just mightn’t be offered with a manual gearbox.
Ford’s vehicle director for icons and Ford Performance, Ali Jammoul, is in Australia for the final sign-off of the second-generation Ranger Raptor and he told Wheels the new Mustang is almost complete.
I don’t think the V8 is going away soon; at some point, with electrification and with BEV [battery electric vehicles] you can do a lot more in terms of performance and that might be the time that V8s start to phase out. But I see Mustang continuing to carry the V8 for now.
2023 Ford Mustang Australia Release Date
The 2023 Ford Mustang production car is rumored to enter production in March 2023 – or possibly as early as December 2022 – suggesting a global unveiling before the end of 2022. That leaves time for Ford to debut the GT4 racing version before the competition begins towards the middle of 2023 – and the GT3 variant, before it debuts on track in 2024.