Ford Mustang GTD assessment: Ford applies supercar logic to its tyre-shredding muscle automotive Opinions 2025

Ah, the automotive with anger administration points!

Just as a result of it’s been styled by testosterone doesn’t imply the Ford Mustang GTD doesn’t have a softer facet. You simply need to dig a bit to search out it (and also you’ll preserve digging till you get to the super-sophisticated damping, extra of which anon).

But come on, it’s essentially the most aggressive factor I’ve seen exterior a UFC area.

It does admittedly have the pumped gymnasium rat aesthetic down pat. The width, the stance, the swagger, slats and bulges. At 2,080mm vast, it’s over 150mm wider than a daily Mustang. Now usually, when companies do hardcore fashions they may add an additional 40-50mm of width. But 150mm is virtually unparalleled and speaks volumes for the depths of alterations which were made.

Come on then, how deep are we speaking?

Deep sufficient that I’m unsure Ford can recoup the funding it should have made within the earnings it may possibly flip from the 1,000 which might be being constructed. Yes, although it prices getting on for ten instances as a lot as a base Mustang. $325,000 within the US, or £315,000 within the UK (left hand-drive solely).

OK sure, slight exaggeration as Ford has a £315 million payday coming now all have been spoken for. But even so, it’s essential to see this automotive as a model builder as a lot as a standalone mannequin. No, that doesn’t imply we must always count on a Focus RS to magically reappear within the vary anytime quickly, nevertheless it does imply Ford needs to be seen as a mainstream model that actually cares about driving dynamics. Is a WRC-inspired 4WD Puma an excessive amount of to hope for?

Probably, sure, however you digressed. We had been speaking alterations.

Ford acquired Multimatic on board to assist. The final time they did this was for the GT, and the learnings from that automotive – and a number of the options – have been handed on. Including the hydraulic suspension that drops it 40mm into monitor mode so quick it’s prefer it’s simply been sat on.

The bother is that what we’re speaking about right here isn’t only a monitor model of an already sporty automotive – Porsche has it comparatively simple turning a daily 911 right into a GT3 RS (essentially the most steely-eyed monitor machine of all of them and the automotive Ford has explicitly focused). Instead it’s one thing way more basic: turning a tyre-shredding muscle automotive that specialises in burnouts right into a tenacious monitor weapon that specialises in apexes. Apices. Or alternatively: turning an engine automotive right into a chassis automotive.

The entrance suspension has clearly are available in for some work, however not less than it’s mounted to an current (albeit closely bolstered) subframe. The rear of the automotive is fully new. And there’s no boot – sorry, trunk – in any respect.

Two issues necessitated a singular rear sub-frame: weight distribution and suspension. Achieving a 50:50 weight cut up meant shifting the gearbox and a number of the cooling to the again, and that wasn’t going to work with the prevailing structure. Plus, it was solely in 2014 that the Mustang stopped being fitted with a stable rear axle and gained unbiased suspension. However, one thing way more specialised was known as for right here: inboard suspension with DSSV spool dampers.

And a porthole the place the rear seats needs to be.

Careful the place you direct the mirror whereas driving – they’re slightly distracting. Anyway, spool valves substitute a standard damper’s shim stack and as an alternative management fluid circulation by small adjustable tubes. More exact, extra adjustable, higher warmth resistance and so forth. And significantly better in a position to face up to the consequences of 600kg of downforce created by that adjustable rear wing at 155mph.

That’s lots of drag. I belief it has oodles of energy to take care of that?

Oh boy yeah. It makes use of a closely uprated, dry-sumped model of the 5.2-litre supercharged V8 fitted to the Mustang GT500, yielding 815bhp and 664lb ft of torque. But greater than that it yields noise. Primordial, Cretaceous noise. Stand and watch because it thunders previous and it screeches in the direction of you, supercharger yowling, a compressive doppler that morphs into an totally ferocious exhaust because it prices previous. It’s mega. And received’t be coming to Europe. This is a US-spec set-up, European regs demand one thing tamer. Got one coming? You know what to do.

Why, that’s 300bhp greater than a GT3 RS, it should be a lot quicker.

You’d assume so, wouldn’t you? But truly it makes use of that additional 300bhp to go three seconds slower across the Nurburgring than its deadliest rival: 6m 52.072s versus 6m 49.328s

I sense a weighty challenge at play right here…

We feared it was coming, didn’t we? But carbon physique panels and magnesium wheels can solely achieve this a lot once you’re additionally including additional stiffening in all places and big parts. I’m not kidding, rise up near the porthole and also you realise simply how outsize these dampers are, just like the pistons off steam trains. And so it continues across the automotive: brakes, splitter, vents – it’s not simply the wing that’s ginormous. And all essentially large to help the burden, which climbs as a result of the parts are large and so forth and so forth.

But greater than that it yields noise. Primordial, Cretaceous noise

End end result? 1,930kg in its lightest guise. Which is half a tonne up on the Porsche and, so far as I can work out, makes this the heaviest Mustang there’s ever been. Let me know if that’s vast of the mark.

Can you inform once you’re driving?

Most of the time, no. Firstly as a result of it manages its weight so properly and secondly since you’re having an excessive amount of of an excellent time to care.

I wasn’t certain I used to be going to at first. The cabin feels a bit tame, a bit odd after the outside savagery. The solely seats are large, plush and chunky; supportive, however they don’t lock you in place like a carbon bucket. And there’s no roll cage. Ford says that the elements aftermarket within the US is so fashionable that they didn’t have to, however I reckon they’ve missed a trick – and a chance to squeeze a bit extra cash out of patrons.

But as quickly because it begins transferring, even at low street speeds, it does all the pieces professionally. No wayward motion, no chassis shudder or suspension tremor, no gearbox slack. Nothing like an odd Mustang in different phrases. It begins like a Mustang, large V8 roar, however from the second you click on the Tremec twin clutch ‘box into first, it’s a world away.

Not fairly the precision of the GT3, however a capability to take care of all the pieces with one enter and transfer on. The manner it rounds off bumps, smooths out tough surfaces and virtually by no means loses its composure on street or monitor feels, properly, luxurious. Weight performs its half there, smothering small stuff, the Mustang hardly ever thrown off target, however there’s greater than sufficient finesse and adjustability on monitor to make this a deeply fulfilling automotive to drive.

And what’s it like as a monitor automotive?

It’s one of the partaking, indulgent and entertaining I’ve ever pushed. Because it hits you at so many ranges. No-one is resistant to engine noise like this. Everyone can admire dealing with that’s this properly balanced and accessible. In some monitor automobiles – and I’d embrace the GT3 RS on this, the barrier to entry can appear fairly excessive, just like the automotive’s suggesting you’re not ok. The GTD isn’t like that. It’s a bear hug of a automotive.

But what about in case you are a monitor warrior?

It’s not a dancer, doesn’t change route just like the Porsche, isn’t as locked down. I wasn’t anticipating sensational steering suggestions and I didn’t get it, there’s not a substantial amount of sensitivity there, nevertheless it’s crisp and properly weighted sufficient to present me religion. No lag or delay from the supercharged V8, simply large, on the spot torque and a continuing barrage of cackling, gargling and roaring. And the gearshifts punch by onerous and quick.

Oh, and the brakes are downright sensational. Wouldn’t thoughts a firmer, shorter pedal, however the stopping energy, the sheer power you possibly can put by these huge 325-section entrance tyres is apparent ridiculous. Under cornering in addition to slowing. It’s a mighty factor for nook entry (and exit come to that) as a result of entrance and rear axles are so in tune with one another.

The rival it jogs my memory most of is AMG’s GT Black Series, a correct locked down, race-inspired, GT3 RS-adjacent monitor machine. This is extra playful, has a bigger dealing with candy spot, and a gung-ho angle that I can’t get sufficient of. Where the Black Series and GT3 RS fulfill the element geek in all of us, the GTD delivers earthier pleasures.

Don’t assume meaning it’s a drift automotive – it would slide round, however actually it’s set as much as drive cleanly into, by and out of corners. It flows properly. I thunder round Paul Ricard, bodywork vibrating, brakes pounding, engine roaring and reckon I’m having a greater outing right here than I’d be in absolutely anything else and dangle the lap instances. Because who cares, actually?

Anything to be involved about?

Above 165mph down the 1.8km Mistral Straight, I believed the GTD could be about to tug itself aside. The mirrors blurred, the bodywork began buzzing, the seats had been vibrating, the entire automotive hummed with power and pressure.

It’s not that the GTD felt prefer it was going to tug itself aside, extra that it was making me conscious of the strain and energy it’s placing itself by on its strategy to hitting 180mph. I used to be conscious of the velocity, of how onerous it was working to attain it.

The mirrors blurred, the bodywork began buzzing, the seats had been vibrating, the entire automotive hummed with power and pressure

So it’s bodily to drive, you’re feeling the strain within the automotive and it solely struggles to handle its weight when the warmth build-up begins to wilt the brakes and tyres. But by then the gas tank is empty. It’s acquired a thirst on it like nothing else, the GTD. 50 miles and it’s parched.

Does it work on street as properly?

In some ways it’s a greater street automotive than monitor automotive. It’s not as linked, pure and intimate to drive on monitor because the GT3 RS nevertheless it’s a manner higher feelgood street automotive, as a result of regardless of its new-found monitor means it hasn’t misplaced what it means to be a Mustang. You can nonetheless dangle an elbow out the window and simply cruise. Or do an unlimited burnout. Or thump a few hundred miles apart with out each floor change being a punctuation mark. It might be easy-going and relaxed in a manner no different monitor automotive fairly matches. And I believe within the US it’s going to be greeted as the best factor because the Constitution.

What about in Europe?

I think most individuals who can afford one and like monitor driving can be sniffy about it, see it as beneath them, as not having the correct badge, the correct engine, the correct look or the correct picture. Trouble is that they’d be lacking out. Because it has the correct stuff.