Ford teams up with Chinese design academy for trio of Mustangs 

For hard-working design students, there is no greater reward than showcasing the fruit of your efforts. What better place to trot out a project than in the midst of one of the world's biggest auto shows. 

During Auto Shanghai 2025 three unique visions of the Mustang muscle car were put together through a collaboration between Ford's China Design Centre and the CDS Transportation Design Academy. Created under the mantra of "A Grand Tour of Re-Imagination", the process kicked off in December 2024 and drew in 25 students from 22 universities not only in China but beyond. 

From the 25 that entered, eight were selected for the next stage and got the chance to work side-by-side with the pros at Ford China. The week-long intensive course saw them following the in-house design process as hand-drawn sketches were translated into detailed digital models before active review in VR. Following a final evaluation, these eight students then became three, with the deserving trio getting their designs pushed through to the physical modelling stage.  

The finalists include Liu Sizhuo of the Tsinghua University's Academy of Fine Arts; Xie Yi'an from Pforzheim University in Germany; and Lai Yushun from Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, all of whose work was described as "exceptional." 

Max Wolff, design director of Ford China, says the team is "proud to draw in so many talented young designers" and enjoyed giving the students a chance to experience the feeling of a full-service design studio.  "This allowed us to evaluate not only the students' creative vision," he says, "but their grasp of the automotive design process, providing an invaluable hands-on experience for them.”

To be clear, this is more than a process of re-skinning the Mustang in its current generation. Images shared with Car Design News show how each model has its own distinct look and feel owing to very different but valid forms of inspiration. 

Sizhou (Tsinghua, China) opted to draw on the Mustang's heritage as a symbol of America's vast open highways and cruising culture, resulting in a Shooting Brake theme designed for road trips. The Mustang Mach-S Concept ultimately aims to blend the performance of a sports car with the practicality of a shooting brake — a proven combination, we would say. 

For Yi'an (Pforzheim, Germany), the Mustang was reimagined as a 'ute' or 'utility coupe' — essentially a muscle pick-up. This feels perhaps the closest to the current generation of the Mustang, at least from the rear with a familiar three-bar lamp structure at each corner. The squareness of the rear mask evokes that of the fifth-generation Mustang, but beyond this is feels entirely new with a cab-forward design, short overhangs and short bonnet. 

Meanwhile, Yushun (Tianjin, China) leaned into the Mustang's roots as a race car and success at races like Daytona and Le Mans. Rethinking the interior, the design is based around a tandem cockpit where the passenger sits directly behind the driver — almost like a fighter jet. This theme flowed through to the exterior, prompting an incredibly low-slung, aero-inspired silhouette with defined massing around the wheels. 

The projects seemed to resonate with Ford's China Design team and with Wolff in particular. 

“The CDS students showed incredible creativity, a great work ethic, and professionalism in striving for excellence," says Wolff, "qualities that will be vitally important for the future of our industry.”