The new Ford Mustang was already looking pretty good, with its standard manual gearbox and 500hp Dark Horse flagship. Now it looks about a million times more impressive with confirmation of that, the GTD. Or, as Ford CEO Jim Farley calls it, “the best of Ford Motor Company and what our team needs to do every day.” You can repeat it.
We have to start with the looks of this GTD (named after the IMSA class the new GT3 race car will compete in), because it borders on amazing. Here’s a Ford Mustang with 325-section front tires (!) and 345-section rears, on magnesium wheels, that will be built in 2025. (The tracks themselves are four inches wider than a Mustang GT .) Typically, by the way, you take the boss’ claims about a “race car for the road” with a strong pinch of salt, but it’s aggressive enough to give something like an old GT4 car looking a bit shy.
Most of the bodywork is carbon fiber, with a heavy emphasis on aero: see that front splitter and chiseled vents for the hood and fenders, plus a rear spoiler to rival a GT3 RS for silliness, Springing from the C-pillar like nothing we’ve even seen on a Mustang before. There will be an optional aero package that introduces both an undertray and “technology that would be illegal in racing” (cool), including hydraulically operated front flaps that work in conjunction with that epic rear tea tray (and active) for better aerodynamic balance. Interestingly, the GTD team and the designers of the GT3 racer worked together to share solutions between the two, which seems believable looking at this thing. There are very serious track cars, it seems – and then there’s the GTD.
It’s not even the most extreme, as the trunk is now filled with semi-active suspension, the hydraulic element control system and a transaxle cooling system. The trunk lid itself is now just a “race-inspired lid,” one with two funnels to vent air out of the rear window and into the heat exchangers.
The suspension sounds predictable at the top level as well. For starters, it uses Multimatic’s DSSV spool dampers (also used in the Assetto Fiorano track set on a Ferrari SF90). Two settings for road and track can adjust both spring rate and ride height, with the most serious setting bringing the GTD 40mm closer to the road. Ford describes the semi-active suspension as “state-of-the-art,” with a short-long arm setup up front to improve lateral stiffness and a pushrod layout in the rear. In a Mustang! Not so long ago an independent rear axle was worth considering, now we have one with inboard Multimatic dampers and coil springs arranged horizontally at the rear in a motorsport-style subframe. Crikey. Ford says “the architecture creates a 1:1 pushrod-to-damper motion ratio so the car responds precisely to track conditions.”
It says a lot about this GTD that we’re nearly 500 words into a Mustang short story and the engine hasn’t been mentioned once. Predictably, it’s powerful: Ford is aiming for 800bhp with the supercharged Voodoo V8, which seems achievable given that the 5.2 was rated at 760bhp in the old GT500. It will be dry sump, beyond 7,500 rpm, and a titanium exhaust will be offered. The sound is described as “symphonic” – you bet. Power reaches those rear Michelin behemoths via a carbon driveshaft – again, in a Mustang! – and an eight-speed dual-clutch mounted in a transaxle, with nearly 50/50 weight distribution promised. To help drivers get the most out of performance, the GTD will feature Ford’s Variable Traction Control, with its adjustable threshold via steering wheel buttons. And if all else fails, the Brembo carbon ceramic is said to be “massive”.
The result of all of this will be “incredible lap times on some of the world’s most hellish tracks”, with Ford not shy about wanting to upset the establishment. The stated goal is to go under seven minutes on the Nordschleife (a GT3 RS did 6:49), which is out of this world for a front-engined Ford. But it’s really unlike anything we’ve ever seen from the Blue Oval. Boss Farley again: “The Mustang GTD shatters any preconceptions of a supercar… “It’s a new approach for us. We didn’t design a road car for the track, we made a race car for the road. The Mustang GTD takes the racing technology of our Mustang GT3 race car, wraps it in a carbon fiber Mustang body and unleashes it for the streets.
They’re really going to get there too – it’s not just some visionary concept to appease gearheads while Ford cracks with electrification. The Mustangs will leave Flat Rock heading for Canada, where Multimatic will hand-build a monster alongside Ford Performance. Don’t expect there to be many, expect to pay around $300,000 and count the days until early 2025 – it could be amazing.
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