800hp Mustang GTD targets Nurburgring domination

The new Ford Mustang was already shaping up fairly properly, what with its normal handbook gearbox and 500hp Dark Horse flagship on supply. Now it appears about one million occasions extra superior with affirmation of this, the GTD. Or, as Ford CEO Jim Farley calls it, “the very best of Ford Motor Company and what our team needs to do every day.” You can say that once more.

We should start with how this GTD (named after the IMSA class the brand new GT3 race automobile will compete in) appears, as a result of it verges on the unbelievable. Here is a Ford Mustang with 325-section entrance tyres (!) and 345-section rears, on magnesium wheels, that might be in-built 2025. (The tracks themselves are 4 inches wider than a Mustang GT.) Typically, furthermore, you’re taking the boss’s claims a couple of “race car for the road” with a heavy pinch of salt, however that is aggressive sufficient to make one thing like an previous GT4 automobile look a bit timid.

Most of the physique is carbon fibre, with a heavy deal with aero: see that entrance splitter and chiselled vents for the bonnet and wings, plus a rear spoiler to rival a GT3 RS for silliness, sprouting from the C-pillar like nothing we’ve even seen on a Mustang earlier than. There’s going to be an non-compulsory aero package deal that introduces each an undertray and ‘technology that would be illegal in racing’ (cool) together with hydraulically managed entrance flaps that work along with that epic (and lively) rear tea tray for finest aero steadiness. Interestingly, the GTD staff and the folks designing the GT3 racer labored collectively to share options between the 2, which appears plausible taking a look at this factor. There are very severe monitor automobiles, it appears – after which there’s the GTD.

That’s not even probably the most excessive bit, as a result of the boot is now crammed stuffed with semi-active suspension, the management system for the hydraulic parts, and a transaxle cooling system. The bootlid itself is now only a ‘race-inspired cover’, one with two funnels to scoop air off the again glass and into the warmth exchangers.

The suspension sounds predictably subsequent stage, too. For starters, it employs Multimatic’s lauded DSSV spool valve dampers (additionally used within the Assetto Fiorano monitor package deal on a Ferrari SF90). Two settings for highway and monitor can alter each spring charge and journey height, probably the most severe setting dropping the GTD 40mm nearer to the highway. Ford describes the semi-active suspension as ‘state of the art’, with a short-long arm set-up upfront to reinforce lateral stiffness and a pushrod association out again. In a Mustang! Wasn’t so way back an impartial rear axle was newsworthy, now right here now we have one with inboard Multimatic dampers and coilover springs horizontally organized throughout the again in a motorsport-style subframe. Crikey. Ford says the ‘architecture creates a motion ratio from pushrod to damper of 1:1 so the car responds precisely to track conditions.’

It says an terrible lot about this GTD that we’re nearly 500 phrases right into a Mustang information story and the engine hasn’t been talked about as soon as. It’s predictably mighty: Ford is aiming for 800hp from the supercharged Voodoo V8, which appears achievable given the 5.2 was rated at 760hp within the previous GT500. It’s going to be dry-sumped, rev past 7,500, and a titanium exhaust might be supplied. The sound is described as ‘symphonic’ – you wager. Power reaches these big rear Michelins by way of a carbon driveshaft – once more, in a Mustang! – and an eight-speed dual-clutch mounted in a transaxle, with nearly 50:50 weight distribution promised. To assist drivers get probably the most out of the efficiency, the GTD might be fitted with Ford’s Variable Traction Control, with its threshold adjustable by steering wheel buttons. And if all else fails, the Brembo carbon ceramics are stated to be ‘massive’.

The results of all this might be ‘incredible lap times at some of the world’s most hellish tracks’, Ford making no bones about its want to upset the institution. The said purpose is to go below seven minutes on the Nordschleife (a GT3 RS did 6:49), which is out of this world for a front-engined Ford. But then this actually is like nothing else we’ve ever seen from the Blue Oval. Boss Farley once more: “Mustang GTD shatters every preconceived notion of a supercar… “This is a new approach for us. We didn’t engineer a road car for the track, we created a race car for the road. Mustang GTD takes racing technology from our Mustang GT3 race car, wraps it in a carbon fibre Mustang body and unleashes it for the street.”

They actually are going to make it, too – this isn’t a mere imaginative and prescient idea to placate the gearheads whereas Ford cracks on with electrification. Mustangs will depart Flat Rock headed for Canada, the place Multimatic will handcraft a monster alongside Ford Performance. Don’t anticipate there to be very many, do anticipate to pay round $300ok, and get counting down the times to early 2025 – this might be extraordinary.