Ford Mustang Shooting Brake Concept Is Proof Two-Door Wagons Will Always Be Awesome

For decades, Ford hasn’t messed around too much with the Mustang muscle car. It played with the idea of a front-wheel-drive replacement with the Probe a few decades back, but ultimately stayed true to its V8, rear-drive roots until the all-electric Mustang Mach-E SUV came along in 2019. And that was with heaps of controversy. Now, for the Shanghai Auto Show in China, Ford has developed new concept cars that take the Mustang in three bold new directions.

Young Mustang Designers

The three new Chinese Mustang concepts actually come from a group of students. Eight students were selected from an initial program, including 25 college kids from more than 20 schools in China, to ultimately go to Ford’s new design center in the country to work on these new cars in February, so this is a pretty quick turnaround.

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All the designs were filtered down into three concepts. The project event was dubbed “Mustang: A Grand Tour Of Re-imagination,” and produced a hypercar, a truck, and a shooting brake version of Ford’s iconic muscle car, though as broad, bold new concepts and not as practical production-ready models, so there won’t be any powertrain details. It’s unclear how the three proposals were selected from the group, but the students turned their sketches into digital 3D models with the help of Ford’s design studio.

Three Distinct Themes For The Futuristic ‘Stang

Student Liu Sizhuo from Tsinghua University introduced the Mustang Mach-S Concept, which is a handsome and slightly more practical shooting brake version of the muscle car. The goal was more to explore freedom on the open road versus a hardcore track experience, which another one of the concepts has fairly covered.

Lai Yushun’s Mustang Hyper Tandem Concept takes the pony car that much further, with a bold racing stance and tandem seating, where the driver and passenger are aligned and centered in the cockpit tandem style, like a fighter jet.

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Finally, Xie Yi’an from Pforzheim University introduced the Mustang Super Utility Concept, which is a ute-like pickup version of the car. The idea was to maintain the sporty presence of the Mustang, but marry it with more practical cargo solutions.

Ford was the first automaker to operate a full-fledged design center in central Shanghai when it opened its sixth global design center in the city in 2022. It enables Ford to design vehicles in China from blank page to full-sized clay model under one roof, so it’s possible there’s a unique Chinese-market Mustang one day, if there’s demand for it.