Official Ford Mustang design sketch reveals possible sedan

The 2023 Ford Mustang is set to continue as a coupe – but official drawings by the US car giant’s head designer show the muscle car could evolve into a sedan.

As a part of yesterday’s reveal of the seventh-generation Mustang, promotional material distributed by Ford included a number of official sketches which influenced the final design of the muscle car.

However, buried in a series of drawings by Ford’s senior exterior designer, Christopher Stevens, the Mustang is depicted as a four-door sedan – albeit with a coupe-like roof design.

Rumours of a Mustang sedan have been swirling since 2018, when Ford dealers were reportedly told of a new four-door coupe akin to the Porsche Panamera and Audi A7.

While the sedan wasn't revealed at the coupe's unveiling this week, a four-door Ford Mustang sedan is far from off the cards, given the precedent set by the Mustang Mach-E.

Unveiled in 2019, the Mustang Mach-E electric SUV initially drew criticism from passionate Ford fans, believing the US car giant was diluting the legacy of its iconic nameplate.

Even Ford’s executive chairman – William Clay Ford Junior, the great-grandson of the company founder Henry Ford – said he was against the Mustang name being used on anything other than a coupe, especially an electric car.

“No, I'm sorry, I don’t want to hurt the brand. This is not going to be a Mustang,” William Clay Ford told his team in the early stages of Mustang Mach-E development.

“When I drove it, I knew it had to be a Mustang," he later revealed.

“It doesn’t replace the Mustang car I love. It’s an addition to the family, and it's a really important one.”

According to US website Good Car Bad Car, Ford has sold 25,765 examples of the Mustang Mach-E in the US this year – a little more than 4000 examples shy of the petrol-powered Mustang coupe, which has 29,910 sales for the year so far. 

At the 2023 Ford Mustang launch, Mr Ford said the new-generation muscle car might not be the final petrol-powered iteration of the model, refusing to rule out internal combustion engines in the future.

“People have asked me ‘well, is this the last internal combustion (engine) Mustang’, and the answer is ‘we’ll see’”, Mr Ford said.

“If these things (cars like the Mustang) … if people don’t want them anymore, it’ll go away. But I personally believe that people are going to want this vehicle for quite some time.”

The 2023 Ford Mustang is due in Australia late next year.