Here’s an interesting fact regarding the Mustang’s history that you may have not been aware of: from the introduction of the first edition of the car in 1964 through 1979, Ford was forced to rename all Mustangs destined for the German market to the much less dramatic-sounding “T5”.
The reason why Ford had to rebrand its pony car was that German truck manufacturer Krupp possessed the Mustang trademark in the country and sold trucks with that name for many years. According to the Blue Oval, the T5 moniker was selected because it had been used as the internal project code during the initial development phase of the Mustang.
While Ford kept the galloping horse emblems on the German market cars, the fender badges, rear gas cap and steering wheel branding were all replaced with the T5 moniker. Other changes over the North American versions were mostly limited to replacing the exterior lighting to meet European regulations, with Ford also fitting the Mustang with the shock tower brace from the Shelby GT350 “to better suit continental roads”.
While available through select Ford dealers in export markets like Germany, a significant number of Mustangs were imported through the United States military’s P-X system.
“Over the years, many of T5s that ended up in civilian hands in Europe were first purchased by soldiers stationed in Germany,” said John Clor, Ford Mustang historian and author of The Mustang Dynasty. “Some soldiers had their cars shipped back stateside at the end of their tour of duty while others sold them to German civilians.”
The same applies today with Ford stating that of the some 4,000 Mustangs sold in markets outside of North America in 2012, about a fourth, or approximately 1,000 cars, were acquired through military channels.
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