Ford Details the German Ford Mustang That Never Wore the Mustang Name

When the 2015 Ford Mustang arrives next year, it will be marketed in a variety of global markets but it will not be the first Mustang sold abroad. In fact, when Ford introduced the Mustang back in 1964, the company was quick to begin offering the new sports car in the German market but they were quickly met with a problem. The name “Mustang” was owned in Germany by the large truck builder Krupp and the company had been using that name on one of their truck lines for many years when Ford introduced their new Mustang sports car. Rather than attempt to battle for the right to use the Mustang name in the German market, Ford simply reverted to the internal code name of the Mustang project prior to being until and the Ford T5 was born.

The Ford T5 sold in Germany from 1964 through 1979 was nearly identical in almost every way to the Ford Mustang sold in America with the only exception being the fact that the word Mustang didn’t appear anywhere on the German T5. The German Mustang did wear the running pony logo on the grille but the Mustang logo on the steering wheel center, fenders and rear gas cap was replaced with the T5 logo. Also, some exterior lights were added so that the vehicle conformed to local government requirements and in some models, Ford tuned the suspension system to offer a better ride on the long, smooth German highways. Both the original 1st generation Mustang models that ran from 1964 through 1973 and the Mustang II models that ran from 1974 through 1978 were offered in German as the T5 at select Ford dealerships along with being available through the United States military P-X system. This program allowed American soldiers stationed in Germany to purchase the cutting edge American muscle car for use overseas and when those soldiers headed home – they had the option of having the car shipped back to their American homes or they could sell the car to a local resident.

“Over the years, many of T5s that ended up in civilian hands in Europe were first purchased by soldiers stationed in Germany,” said John Clor, Ford Mustang historian and author of The Mustang Dynasty. “Some soldiers had their cars shipped back stateside at the end of their tour of duty while others sold them to German civilians.”

Ford has continued to sell the Mustang in non-US markets over the past years and a healthy dose of those models are still sold through the military P-X program. In 2012, Ford sold around 4,000 Mustangs outside of North American and roughly 25% of those were sold to US soldiers stationed in countries other than the USA.

The image above shows how the T5 logo was crudely mocked up on an early Ford Mustang.