Worried it may fall foul of anti-hoon laws in Australia and New Zealand, Ford's local arm has deactivated a "burnout mode" function within its new Mustang performance car.

The function allows overseas buyers to clamp on their front brakes while spinning the rear wheels under power to perform a burnout, a feature legitimately used in drag racing to warm up the rear tyres for optimum traction.

The blue oval's chief engineer for the Mustang, Carl Widmann, says that feature lies dormant within the model and can be reactivated without significant modifications.

Widmann says the removal of the function was "just software" and that the car still has the potential to perform line-locker burnouts.

The sixth-generation Ford Mustang is fitted with an automatic line-lock function that has been ruled out of Australian models. Photo: Supplied.

"You can do anything with code, right," he says.

"It's just code, and the code is available in other markets. I wouldn't doubt that there's somebody who knows how to design apps for the iPhone who could figure it out."

While smoky burnouts are illegal to perform on many public roads across the world, only Australian and New Zealand Ford importers asked to have the feature blocked in local cars.

"At the end of the day it's what they want," Widmann says.

"From what they wanted us to ship here that was not something we could ship."

The sixth-generation Ford Mustang is fitted with an automatic line-lock function that has been ruled out of Australian models. Photo: Supplied.