The State of the Union in Australia when it comes to muscle cars is looking pretty grim. The country's only homegrown muscle cars, the Holden Commodore (and its variants, like the Ute) and Ford Falcon, are ending production after languishing with poor sales.

Well, Ford of Australia saw a solution to the Falcon's dwindling life expectancy: redevelop the S550 Mustang for right-hand-drive (RHD) markets, filing the niche. This would also be the first Mustang to be developed in-house by Ford in the right-hand-drive configuration, and they are actually rolling out of Ford's Flatrock, Michigan, assembly line alongside its Stars-and-Bars brethren.

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Well, the idea clearly worked, because more than 4,000 Aussies have placed deposits on the Blue Oval's newest ponycar before even a single 5.0 Coyote has reached the island, according to News.com.au; that's, apparently, more than triple the number of orders that Ford has received for the homegrown Falcon. In fact, Australians have also ordered twice as many cars as UK buyers, even with their drastically smaller population. Better yet, around 80 percent of the orders are for the high-performance 435hp 5.0 GT—oi oi oi!

Ford had begun to ship the Mustang to Australia and New Zealand, with both islands seeing the initial batch of around 500 cars reaching their shores last week. However, with currency exchange rates and the additional work and shipping needed to paddle these Mustangs across the Pacific, Australians are paying between $45,000 and $65,000.