2019 Ford Mustang GT California Special.

DETROIT: Ford has announced what it has planned for further enhancing its iconic Mustang muscle car for the 2019 model year.

America's favourite sports car will enjoy even more style and technology for 2019 due to the resurrection of the legendary Mustang GT California Special, new tech features such as rev-matching on 5.0-litre manual-equipped models, a custom-tuned B&O Play premium audio system, and a trio of new vintage-inspired colors and over-the-top racing stripes.

But whereas this is the kind of news the rest of the world outside North America would have previously looked at as something for enthusiasts only as the Mustang was then a purely American model, it may be as important outside the US now as it is in the American market. How much of this becomes available outside America is yet to be revealed, but as even the Bullitt Mustang is being made available to buyers outside the US the chances of all of it going global are pretty good.



Although it took 50 years and nine million cars produced and sold before Ford decided the time was right for the Mustang to be given a global release, the only fault with that decision was that it took so long.

Despite the Mustang being built in America and shipped to other countries where it costs more than it does in North America due to various taxes and tariffs, the car has been nothing short of a roaring sales success over the last couple of years.

The novelty of this latest generation of the Mustang appears to be waning in its native America where sales are falling, but the 140 or so other countries it's now sold in are more than making up for that. In fact, Ford says that as many as one in four of all Mustangs built at the Flat Rock, Michigan plant are now bound for Britain, Germany and China.



"No doubt, 2019 is an exciting year for Mustang enthusiasts, especially fans of our California Special and Bullitt models," said Ford US car group marketing manager Corey Holter. "This year further targets hardcore Mustang enthusiasts who want even more performance from Bullitt, while new technology including rev-matching on manual transmission-equipped Mustang GTs and active valve performance exhaust on EcoBoost models means even more thrills."

Those remarks are largely aimed at a domestic audience, but it's probably the global audience that's now listening more closely.

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