Mustang improves NCAP safety rating

The new Ford Mustang has had a safety upgrade from Euro NCAP thanks to the introduction of new driver assistance technologies that will arrive in New Zealand models from next year. The European safety watchdog gave a reassessed rating of three stars for the 2018 Mustang Fastback, effective from July 2017. While the new model includes a range of safety features, the car remains structurally identical to the previous model, and the occupancy and pedestrian crash risk scores, including a low child occupancy rating (32 per cent), remains unchanged.  The Mustang scored a two-star ANCAP safety rating when it launched in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year, with both ANCAP and the AA concerned about the lack of safety technology and low child protection scores. Communications and government affairs manager Tom Clancy told Autofile the next-generation New Zealand iteration of the Mustang, which is expected to launch in mid-2018, will also contain these new driver assistance technologies. "The 2018 Mustang will be available with standardised pre-collision assist (with pedestrian detection, forward collision warning and autonomous emergency braking) and lane departure warning and lane keeping aid," he said. The Mustang has proved popular among Kiwi drivers since the right-hand drive model first launched in New Zealand in December 2015. 381 new vehicles have been sold in the country so far in 2017, putting the Mustang inside the top 50 highest-selling models, and New Zealanders snapped up 987 of the 45,000 vehicles sold outside the US worldwide last year.