The Ford Mustang is one of the most popular cars to be manufactured by the American carmaker, not because it's an elegant looking car filled to the brim with features, but because it still stays true to its pony car heritage and its outright performance. The 2017 model, in particular, looks amazing, is super fun to drive and still manages to offer all the necessary modern equipment that today's car buyer looks for. That said today's car buyer also looks for high safety standards and it is this attribute that Europe's New Car Assessment Program or Euro NCAP has proved the 2017 Mustang GT is not very capable of offering.
Ford Mustang Crash Test
In the latest round of assessments done by Euro NCAP, the European Spec 2017 Ford Mustang GT received just 2-Star rating . That is the lowest rating a new performance car has received in a long time. According to Euro NCAP's report, the new Ford Mustang is 72 per cent safe for adult occupants and just 32 per cent safe for child occupants. The report also mentions the inability of the front driver and passenger airbags to inflate fully enough to restrain the occupants.
Frontal Offset Impact
Now considering it is a two-door sportback design, the rear seat is not a very comfortable place to be in, as we have told you that in our review. But according to Euro NCAPs report, it's also not a very safe place to be in the event of a collision. The crash test revealed that the rear occupants were more affected from the impact because the car is not equipped with seatbelt pre-tensioners and load-limiters on the rear seats. The result was similar for frontal impact, side impact, and whiplash rear impact. The current Mustang is also not equipped with an autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system, which would have provided greater whiplash protection. However, Ford has indicated that the next version of the Mustang, which was recently revealed, will have AEB. Also while testing for side impact it was noticed that the head of the dummy struck the door trim below the curtain airbag.
Ford Mustang Side Impact Test
Now, interestingly, the same 2017 Ford Mustang has scored good safety rating in the US crash test performed by safety bodies like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). In fact, NHTSA gave the Mustang a 5-star rating in every aspect, including roll-over testing - an American standard not assessed in Europe. What is also worth mentioning here is the Euro-spec Ford Mustang also misses out on a few features like - Forward Collision Warning, a system, which is fitted to models sold in the US. All that said we do hope that Ford takes all this into consideration before rolling out the new Mustang facelift in global markets.
