Ford wants to keep the Mustang among the last sports cars offered with a manual gearbox, in an industry increasingly moving towards electrification and automatic transmissions. Chief executive Jim Farley said the manual version will stay "as long as there is demand and regulations allow it".
Farley was less definite about the 5.0 V8, suggesting that emissions rules could eventually limit its survival. The regulatory pressure is especially strong in Europe and Australia, although Ford still builds the 5.0 Coyote, mainly for the United States.
In Brazil, a limited run of 200 Mustang GT manual cars with a 492 hp V8 sold out in about an hour, pointing to continued demand for traditional configurations.