Ford Mustang Sales Plummet as Competition Disappears

By Brett Foote - March 31, 2025

Ford Mustang sales continue their months-long downward spiral even as the pricey pony car has watched its direct competition vanish.

The debut of the all-new, S650 generation Ford Mustang in the 2024 model year was one that came with great anticipation, which was no surprise for a few good reasons. For starters, it isn’t terribly often that we get a redesigned Mustang, which had previously received a redo that lasted nearly a decade, but also, the iconic pony car has watched as its competition – the Chevy Camaro and Dodge Challenger/Charger – have disappeared from the market, at least, temporarily. Thus, some may find it surprising that Ford Mustang sales have been plummeting dramatically for months now.

It all began back in Q4 2024, when Ford Mustang sales closed out the year by posting a whopping 43 percent year-over-year decrease, coming in at 7,518 units sold versus 13,290 in Q4 2023. For the entire 2024 calendar year, the Mustang recorded 44,003 sales, which is a 9 percent decrease versus 48,605 the year prior. Things haven’t improved over the first couple of months in 2025, either, as Ford Mustang sales declined by 36.4 percent in January and 32.2 percent in February – totaling 5,191 units, which places it behind the Mustang Mach-E and its 6,841 sales over that same timeframe.

As for what’s causing this sharp drop in Ford Mustang sales, well, there is one rather large elephant in the room – pricing. While Ford previously admitted that supply chain issues hampered its ability to build pony cars somewhat in 2024, the Mustang has also been treated to a host of price hikes in recent months. After the GT and Dark Horse received price increases greater than $2,700 for the 2025 model year, EcoBoost models went up a modest $100, and shortly thereafter, V8 pony cars received another $1,000 bump.

When it debuted for 2024, the cheapest EcoBoost Mustang retailed for $30,920, with the GT Fastback coming in at $41,495. However, if one wants to purchase the same vehicles today, it’ll set them back $31,920 and $46,560, respectively. The Dark Horse Premium – which started out at $63,625 previously – now costs a whopping $69,375. Trouble is, that latter figure can also get you behind the wheel of a brand new Corvette Stingray, which is a mid-engine sports car with far superior performance, to boot.

We also must consider the fact that with soaring inflation (and high interest rates) increasing the prices of everything over the past few years, buyers simply don’t have as much extra money laying around as they used to. While plenty of folks own nothing more than a Mustang and are happy to daily drive it, generally speaking, these are cars that are oftentimes seen as luxuries and not necessities, serving as a weekend cruiser for a lot of owners. When it comes time to pinch pennies, it’s probably hard to justify buying a new Mustang for a lot of folks that may have otherwise considered such as purchase before.

Ford has rolled out some incentives to help spur Mustang sales as of late, but we’ve yet to see them result in much success, at least, for now. While the iconic pony car certainly isn’t going anywhere, we’d certainly like to see things turn around, though it may take some deep price cuts before that can actually happen.

Photos: Ford