There’s no Shelby GT500 at the moment, no Mustang Mach 1 or Boss 302, but there’s a four-door EV running around that Ford says is a Mustang. Despite all that, we are witnessing a golden moment in the 60-year history of America’s pony car. There’s the track-only Dark Horse R, which populates an IMSA-sanctioned series (think Spec Miata with a much better soundtrack). Ford is also taking the fight to the Corvette Z06, Ferrari 296 GTB, Porsche 911, and more in IMSA and FIA endurance racing with the Mustang GT3. And now along comes the 815-hp Mustang GTD, the most extreme of them all—and the only one of the three that is street legal.view exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverWhat’s the Big Deal?Potentially controversial statement: An 815-hp Mustang is no big deal. The GT500 had 760 horsepower; another 55 is a pretty small step, just 7 percent—and the GTD’s $327,960 base price represents an increase of more than 300 percent. Heck, Ford will sell you a supercharger that boosts the standard Dark Horse to 810 horsepower for just $10,500. But what about a Mustang with a race-derived suspension, carbon-fiber bodywork, available active aero, and 815 horsepower from a dry-sump supercharged 5.2-liter V-8 sending power to a rear-mounted eight-speed dual-clutch transaxle? That would be something special.view exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverThat would be the fastest Mustang Ford has ever built for the street. And one that can lap the legendary Nürburgring in 6:52.072, making it quicker than pretty much any other production vehicle ever, except for a couple of pesky Porsches, the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series, and—much to Ford’s frustration—the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 and ZR1X.
Of Another WorldFord may have built the GTD for the street, but it doesn’t at all look like it. It’s more than six inches wider than lesser Mustangs, and other than the aluminum door skins, every body panel is carbon fiber—even the rocker panels and bumpers. Those massive front fender vents, the duct aft of the door that channels cooling air to the transaxle’s radiator, and the gooseneck rear wing make it look like a Hot Wheels car or something from an over-the-top Need for Speed video game. HIGHS: Real-deal performance, shockingly compliant ride, wild-child appearance. And it drives like it lives in a world with the forgiving physics of a video game. We flew out to Palm Springs, California, to drive the new super Stang at The Thermal Club, a country-club racetrack for the wealthy, but Ford also lent us one to test at home in Michigan. It burrowed into the skidpad like a tick, clinging at 1.17 g’s, and stopped from 70 mph like someone pressed the reset button—in just 132 feet. The GTD’s 2.8- and 6.1-second blasts to 60 and 100 mph beat the GT500 by 0.6 and 0.8 second. But the drag from the optional aero elements—active rear wing and front underbody flaps, dive planes—is readily apparent in the quarter-mile times, where the Shelby is just 1 mph slower despite the GTD’s 0.7-second lead with a 10.6 at 133 mph.view exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and Driverview exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverStick and StopPositively enormous tires play a significant role in generating those numbers. The GTD’s Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2Rs measure 345/30-20 out back and 325/30-20 up front. Those are among the widest tires fitted to the back of any production car, and the fronts are 20 millimeters wider than the rear tires Ferrari routes 819 horsepower through on the 296 GTB. On the roads climbing into the San Jacinto Mountains west of Palm Springs, the Cup 2Rs render the GTD’s brakes largely unnecessary. With this Mustang’s endless stick, you can just turn the wheel and feel your neck strain to keep your head on the same course as the car; 1.17 g’s is a highly unusual sensation and—we’ll go ahead and say it—a highly irresponsible number to probe on the street. It is perhaps even more irresponsible in the Mustang GTD than in, say, a Porsche 911 GT3 RS, in which the steering gives some clue as to how close to the limit you are. The Mustang’s helm is comparatively numb, giving no sense through the wheel of where 1.17 g’s are or, worse, were.view interior PhotosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverOn track at Thermal, though, the brakes get their chance to shine. Carbon-ceramic rotors are standard, 16.5 inches in diameter up front and 14.6 inches out back. Triple-digit daytime highs are the norm for August in the desert, with the heat in the air just a baseline for track temperature. But through repeated hot laps, we never experienced a whiff of fade—although we did get a whiff of gas, because like other seventh-generation Mustangs, the GTD dribbles fuel from the filler during prolonged right turns.
More on the Mustang GTD
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Straighten the car out and put your foot to the floor, though, and those shiny streaks down the flank dry out real quick. The eight-speed dual-clutch automatic is the same Tremec TR-9080 that Chevrolet fits in every version of the C8 Corvette. Its shifts here are just as instantaneous, such a nearly imperceptible interruption to the GTD’s quest for higher speed that an epiphany hits near the end of Thermal’s 2000-plus-foot straightaway. Yes, we always want a manual transmission in a performance car. But at a certain level of power and speed, the machine is just so quick that interrupting it so we can step on a pedal and move a lever might actually detract from the experience. view exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and Driverview exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverWeighty IssuesAs impressive as the GTD’s engine is, though, it’s really just a bit player here—if you can say that about any 815-hp engine. There are extensive lightweighting efforts, and then there’s what Ford did on the GTD. Almost the entire body is carbon fiber. Other than those door skins, the only metal visible on the car is the outer structure of the roof. Despite their size, the carbon-ceramic brake rotors and the aluminum six-piston front calipers are each light enough to be picked up with one hand. Brembo representatives on hand at Thermal were unimpressed when we used them as pom-poms to lead other journalists in cheers. Opt for the Performance package, which includes the active aerodynamic elements, and you’ll also get magnesium wheels.LOWS: Interior commonality with a rental-spec Stang, not much feel through the reins, the price—obviously. Ford says that the Performance pack makes more downforce at 150 mph than a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. When we rolled the GTD onto our scales, we wondered if, instead of active aero, the Mustang didn’t have hyperactive elements, imperceptibly flapping to generate downforce even at rest. The Mustang GTD we tested in Michigan weighed 4404 pounds. Against its 4800-pound gross vehicle weight rating, that means our California mount was overloaded by approximately 100 pounds with two adults aboard. Good thing those brakes are so strong.view interior PhotosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverHow does a car skinned almost entirely in carbon fiber outweigh its closest relative, the GT500, by some 340 pounds? Some of that extra mass comes from the engine’s dry-sump oiling system and the transaxle cooler that now lives in the trunk, but most of it is in the sturdy suspension components responsible for the GTD’s ultrawide stance: an upper control arm and two lower links up front and a pushrod-actuated multilink setup with horizontally mounted adaptive spool-valve dampers from Multimatic in the rear (and in the front). Ford even ditched the rear seat in the GTD, and a polycarbonate window where it used to be lets occupants watch the dampers twitch as the car traverses bumps and divots.view interior PhotosMarc Urbano|Car and Driverview interior PhotosMarc Urbano|Car and Driver Greg Goodall, the GTD’s chief program engineer, tells us that his team’s target Nürburgring time dictated how much power they needed the 5.2-liter V-8 to generate; that power dictated how much rubber they needed; and the wheel-and-tire width dictated the rear-suspension design. Having pushrods actuate the spring and damper moves those larger elements away from the wheel, and snugging the pushrod mount right against it yields benefits for chassis tuning. But the rods and bell cranks that convert vertical to horizontal motion, and the subframe to carry it all, come with a weight penalty.➡️ Skip the lot. Let Car and Driver help you find your next car.Shop New Cars Shop Used CarsWatching those bits jiggle through the window in the rear bulkhead is mesmerizing, but if you want to devote your full attention to it, switch the GTD into Track mode. The car instantly drops 1.6 inches in the front and 1.2 inches in the rear as actuators compress the softer of each damper’s two springs. With this spring effectively locked out, that leaves the GTD riding on coils that are nearly twice as stiff. Track mode also adjusts throttle and shift mapping, enables active aero (on cars so equipped), initiates more lenient stability-control programming, and unlocks stepped traction control. While the GTD doesn’t have the advanced stability-control adjustability of competitive cars from the likes of Ferrari and AMG, this traction-control system performs the same role, under power at least. It allows the driver to adjust between five levels of acceptable wheelspin.view exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverRide and HandlingIts suspension is the most remarkable thing about the GTD. With a weight distribution so fundamentally different from the GT500’s, there’s no hint of nose heaviness here—no hint, even, of just plain heaviness. From behind the wheel, there is no sense of mass shifting side to side, even through rapid transitions. The GTD is superbly planted and neutral. And even in Track mode, it is refined. It is firm, but never harsh; there are no sharp edges to the wheel movements. Swing wide exiting one of Thermal’s turns, and you’ll know when you ride up onto the curbing, but there’s no punch or violence to the encounter.view exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverOn the road, that composure translates into uncommon smoothness. It’s a rare car that simultaneously generates such outrageous performance and is this comfortable. This carbon-fiber-bodied track monster puts the grand touring in GTD. Unfortunately, Ford also puts a standard Mustang EcoBoost interior into a $300,000-plus car, our one major complaint about the GTD. Sure, there are cozy and supportive Recaro buckets, some new performance menus for the infotainment touchscreen, and that awesome rear-bulkhead window onto the suspension, but the dash, door panels, and console are otherwise mostly carryover pieces. VERDICT: A $328,000 Mustang proves not to be an exercise in absurdity. The Mustang GTD is named for its IMSA racing class, the domestic equivalent of the FIA’s GT3 series that runs on tracks around Europe. But the GTD allows Ford to compete with the world’s best supercars on the street too. The question of whether a Mustang can be worth upwards of $325,000 is unavoidable, but so is the question of whether any car is. As much as any car can be, the Mustang is. Yes, it looks like a Mustang and is called a Mustang. But the experience of piloting this one is wholly unique from that of anything else in its lineage. The GTD transcends what any Mustang has ever been before. view exterior photosMarc Urbano|Car and DriverSpecificationsSpecifications
2025 Ford Mustang GTD
Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 2-passenger, 2-door coupe
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $327,960/$367,960
Options: Performance package, $40,000
ENGINE
supercharged and intercooled DOHC 32-valve V-8, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 315 in3, 5163 cm3
Power: 815 hp @ 7400 rpm
Torque: 664 lb-ft @ 4800 rpm
TRANSMISSION
8-speed dual-clutch automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: multilink/multilink
Brakes, F/R: 16.5-in vented, cross-drilled carbon-ceramic disc/14.6-in vented, cross-drilled carbon-ceramic disc
Tires: Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R
F: 325/30ZR-20 (102Y) FP
R: 345/30ZR-20 (106Y) FP
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 107.1 in
Length: 193.6 in
Width: 81.7 in
Height: 55.5 in
Passenger Volume: 52 ft3
Curb Weight: 4404 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 2.8 sec
100 mph: 6.1 sec
130 mph: 10.0 sec
1/4-Mile: 10.6 sec @ 133 mph
150 mph: 14.4 sec
170 mph: 21.0 sec
Results above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.2 sec.
Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 2.9 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 1.7 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 2.0 sec
Top Speed (mfr claim): 202 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 132 ft
Braking, 100–0 mph: 262 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 1.17 g
Interior Sound
Idle: 56 dBA/10 sone
Full Throttle: 93 dBA
70-mph Cruising: 78 dBA/40 sone
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Combined/City/Highway: 12/10/17 mpg
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED
Source: caranddriver.com
