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Trademark Filing Hints at a Ford Mustang Sedan
We’ve come close to seeing a Ford Mustang sedan several times in the model’s history, but the project has never materialized. While nothing is official yet, Ford recently added fuel to the four-door bonfire by trademarking the Mach 4 name.
Ford registered the Mach 4 nameplate on February 25, 2025, in the United States, and its application was assigned serial number 99055118. The trademark is pending, meaning it needs to be reviewed by the relevant authorities before it can be approved. Ford told the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that it wants to use the Mach 4 name on “motor vehicles, namely gasoline and electric automobiles, pick-up trucks, sport utility vehicles and their structural parts.” While that’s vague, it rules out, say, a sweatshirt.
Enthusiast website Ford Authority speculates that Ford intends to employ the Mach 4 nameplate on a four-door Mustang. This would be distinct from the all-electric Mustang Mach-E crossover, which shares little more than a name with the traditional two-door Mustang. The publication sketches the outline of a Mustang-based sport sedan that would presumably go head-to-head against the four-door version of the new Dodge Charger. If that speculation is accurate, the model could offer rear-wheel drive, a 5.0-liter V-8, and a six-speed manual transmission.
The idea of a Mustang sedan isn’t as new or as controversial as it might sound. Ford has experimented with numerous Mustang off-shoots over the past couple of decades, and several of them had four doors. One was notably unveiled in 1965 and based on the first-generation model. The idea was consigned to the attic, where it collected dust. In 2024, Ford reportedly showed dealers a four-door Mustang named Mach 4 during a closed-door meeting (they were also shown a lifted, Baja-racer-esque coupe).
But even before that, Ford executives had floated the idea of a four-door Mustang.
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“We will never build a Mustang that isn’t a Mustang. For instance, there will never be room for a small, two-row Ford SUV with a Mustang badge stuck on it. But could we do other Mustang body forms — a four-door or whatever? I believe we could, as long as these models have all the performance and attitude of the original,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told British magazine Autocar in May 2024. Was the Nürburgring lap record set in December 2024 a way to lay the foundations of a Mustang sub-brand? Ford has doubled down on enthusiast cars in the past couple of years, and there’s a ton of equity in the Mustang name.
But what if Ford Authority is wrong? What else could Mach 4 stand for? Another possible answer is all-wheel drive, which the Mustang has never offered. The notion that rear-wheel-drive is the only proper way to make a sports car is losing ground; even the BMW M3 is available with all-wheel drive, and the new Charger is only all-wheel-drive. We think demand would be there, though it probably wouldn’t be huge, but whether the Mustang’s platform can be configured with all-wheel drive is an entirely different story.
As always, bear in mind that a trademark application doesn’t guarantee that a nameplate will end up in showrooms. Sleuthing through trademark requests can, however, offer an accurate look at how a company is thinking about its product pipeline. Applications can be duds, though. Carmakers routinely trademark names that they think they might use or that they’d rather not see on a competitor’s car. Ford might launch a four-door Mustang Mach 4 in the not-too-distant future, or it might simply want to ensure that, say, Honda doesn’t introduce a car named Mach 4. The company hasn’t commented on the trademark filing.
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No-no, don’t worry, Ford would NEVER bastardize one of its strongest brands!
They would never do a Mustange mach E.
Like my plea on the Corvette name do not risk high grade name equity of 60-80 years on a money grab.
A Corvette should be just a 2 seat sports car and the Mustang a 2+2 coupe. If you want 4 Doors call it something else.
I get it the coupe sales are below 50K from over 670K units a year in the sixties. But don’t tarnish the name.
You might call it a cash grab, but the shareholders must be appeased and name equity does not make share prices rise unless it is leveraged.
I bet you that the name Equity is worth more than the $9.29 it closed at Today.
Just look at the Cutlass name it was applied to a number of body styles on 3 FWD models.
How did that work out? Seen a new Olds lately?
The RWD Cutlass was the top selling car in America and they destroyed the name and brand.
In one of the few examples of what Nissan did right, it was bringing back the Z car as a 2-seater (as I aged, I realized I didn’t need the 2+2 configuration of the Z31 and Z32 – everyone around me had SUVs). Those of us who were just getting driver’s licenses in the 2000’s quite liked the Eclipse, and none of us were chomping at the bit to buy a generic lackluster SUV with the name affixed.
Bring back the Ford engineers who stopped the Mustang from becoming a front wheel dive Probe!
I love the idea. Bring it back as a Falcon. It should be a mix of a Mustang and a Lincoln Mark VIII.
What other way is there to destroy a great two door sport car?
How true. Only a dimbulb could make this stupid decision. Leave the name alone.
I really enjoy reading yours and hyperv6 posts!! I have a 73 Charger I love! I also have a 95 Mustang GT Conv.
I was really upset when the Charger came back as a 4 door (at least this was a larger car with some performance)… If I see a 4 door Mustang I will give up on Ford Completely. I was born in 1959. I grew up with these cars. Back in the day, I was 15 years old when I saw my first Charger R/T (1973). At the time, the coke bottle shape, side stripes, bulge hood, hood pins, magnum 500 rims, and Rally Instrument Cluster made this the most beautiful car I had ever seen. I finally bought one and still love it. Around the same time, I also was fortunate enough to get my hands on a 69 Mustang Fastback. I never did race the two for some reason. No one (stock) ever kept up with that Mustang off the line. The Charger had 3:23 gears s o it was not that quick at a stop sign. That said, when that car grabbed 2nd gear, I would usually catch and pass the cars that beat it off the line.
Please, please, no 4 door mustang!!!
Those Chargers will always be my favorite car. Wish I could have owned one.
In the minority I imagine, I also really like the Chargers in the next generation…73, 74…
They already did that with the EV Mustang, so why not a 4-dr?
Look what they did to the Thunderbird.
Silly comparison.
That was 1960, in Detroit terms that might as well have been a million years ago.
Maybe it was in a time before human memory, because you got the date wrong. it was 1958 for the four-seater ‘Bird. If you’re referring to the four-doo Thunderbird, that would be 1967,
True – it was changed into a very attractive, personal-luxury convertible, from a rather generic-performing (albeit attractive) 2-door sedan. But, they never made the T-Bird into a four-door (the rather cool “suicide-door” late-60’s T-Birds aside) – thank goodness.
I can hear Lee I screaming from the grave, “NO, PLEASE DON’T GO 4-DOOR”!!!!
The same Lee Iacocca that turned Chrysler’s lineup into one K-car derivative after another? That man was all about following market trends — as cheaply as possible.
YEP! And this 4 door Mustang idea has to be coming from some marketing turd who could care less about what the car guys think. Just so it sells!
Iacocca did what he had to do to save the company, and it worked. The K car, and especially the minivan, were/are eminently practical and affordable.
I would welcome a V8 powered rear drive sedan but shouldn’t that be called a Falcon? It was not too long ago in Australia and decades ago it was here.
Perfect solution
Falcon…*Futura*!
Sounds to me like what they should have done in the first place. Nobody, including me, wanted and or understood the Mustang name on a SUV. Had they just called it the Mach-E (which they should ) few would have batted an eyelash. Even most Mach 1 owners would have gotten over it soon enough. This doesn’t seem like anything to get your panties in a twist about unless you like to speculate on things for people to get their panties in a twist about.
Fords in real trouble and it is only going to get worse.
gm and dodge are in real trouple. They have nothing to sell.
An AWD Mustang could be my all-season daily. We were teased along until pretty late that the most-recent generation was going to offer that option. I can’t justify a new rear wheel drive only vehicle where I live.
I don’t need 4-doors on a Mustang. Change the grill and call it a Torino and I am fine with that, might even get one if it has the swoopy sides that lasted into Starsky and Hutch. Sure, a Torino should be bigger, but just getting Ford to offer a 4-door car would be something at this point. The Falcon name does make some sense (and it would be ironic to have a new Falcon based on a Mustang platform) but the 69-mid 70s Torino looks would appeal more to the under 40 crowd today.
Just bring back the Crown Vic
I wish.
The dinosaurs went extinct.
Agree.
Crown Vic, Torino… much better choices. Nobody wants a 4 door Mustang.
Chrysler / Plymouth looked into a four door Barracuda (70) just like we see in the article with the first gen Mustang. Plus one was recently built a few years back by an enthusiast.
I could perhaps see a Lincoln Cougar as a 4 door Mustang platform engineered car. I wish they wouldn’t water down the reverend name of Mustang.
Bring back the Pinto albeit without the barbeque option.
How about installing a Chevy V8 in it ?
Then we can call it a Muskrat.
I’d prefer not to see anything with the name Musk in it.
Good One!!!
Love it!
They already did that with the Mustang EV and it is hideous.
You have to remember, anything is possible. Those of us that remember the original Mustang, are getting fewer & fewer. The manufacture’s have to bow to the now crowd!!!!
Two-step plan for success:
1. Stop bastardizing the Mustang name.
2. Bring back cars.
I agree!!! And, bring back regular Station Wagons. They rode and drove so much better than these SUVs.
A Ford version of the Porsche Panamera? I would consider that!
Yes.
But to do that, they’re need to upgrade the interior, A real weak point in Mustang going back to the 90s.
I really liked the 2005 S197 with the retro ’67-8 style, but the interior was worse than a Corolla and far below my wife’s Mini Cooper. I was 40+, had the money, but didn’t want to drive something with the interior of a Porta Potty (hard molded plastics).