Automotive

Ford's most extreme Mustang ever throws carbon gauntlet at Europe

View 16 Images
The Ford Mustang GTD will launch as a 2025 model
Ford
Ford creates an 800-hp Mustang supercar
Ford
Ford has thrown the kitchen sink into the Mustang GTD to make it an advanced race car for the street and track days
Ford
The GTD looks extreme from every angle thanks to loads of aero and body components like the widened fenders, front spliter, air scoops and huge wing
Ford
The hydraulically controlled wing helps develop massive amounts of downforce for gluing the GTD to the track through corners
Ford
Ford looks to challenge the Germans and Italians on the Nürburgring
Ford
Ford will sell a limited number of Mustang GTDs for a starting price of $300,000
Ford
It has a Mustang-like profile, just radically different from the average
Ford
Ford replaces the trunk with a functional compartment for various active systems
Ford
Ford Mustang GTD
Ford
Serious venting built into the flared-out fenders
Ford
A new level of Mustang performance
Ford
Carbon fiber components throughout keep weight low and balanced
Ford
Available active flaps at the front help to fine-tune aerodynamics on the move
Ford
The Ford Mustang GTD at The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering
Ted7, Kahn Media
The Mustang GTD features Road and Track suspension settings for optimized performance
Ford
The Ford Mustang GTD will launch as a 2025 model
Ford
View gallery - 16 images

A GT3 race car ready to break off the circuit and onto the street, the all-new Mustang GTD is the "most advanced, audacious Mustang ever," according to the folks that built it. The absolutely hellacious new coupe features a full carbon fiber makeover, active aerodynamics bumper to bumper, a first-of-its-kind adaptive street/track suspension, and a supercharged V8 that powers the rear wheels via a carbon fiber driveshaft. If you think it looks furious standing still, just wait until it's angling in on a sub-7 spin around the Nürburgring.

Started in 2021 as something of an after-hours skunkworks project deep inside a Ford storage garage, the Mustang GTD found life as a simply stated but not so simply accomplished objective: Create a Mustang to rival the best European sports cars.

From there, the small group of hand-selected moonlighters teamed with Canadian supplier Multimatic in breaking the street-legal Mustang down to a basic silhouette, redesigning virtually every major panel and component, and building it back up alongside the Mustang GT3 car with which it shares inspiration and hardware. The GT3 will go on to race Le Mans next year, while the GTD will "go faster around a track with more technology than the race cars it’s based on."

Ford will sell a limited number of Mustang GTDs for a starting price of $300,000
Ford

The GTD's body tells a large piece of the story without needing as much as a word – headlamps with the sharp focus of a laser, aero body bits bulging out from every corner, and a rear wing that looks revived from an aircraft graveyard. Down below that high-flying trailing edge, what would usually be a trunk is now the semi-active suspension system, hydraulic rear wing control components and transaxle cooling hardware, covered by a race-inspired lid with functional air scoops that funnel wind coming off the rear glass.

Other standard and available aerodynamic components include a front splitter, vented fenders, rear diffuser, underbody aero tray, and side sills all crafted from carbon fiber to save weight. Ford even adds in some active components that would be illegal in racing, including the hydraulically controlled front flaps.

Ford replaces the trunk with a functional compartment for various active systems
Ford

The scooped hood and roof are also made from carbon fiber, helping to keep overall weight low and centered near the ground. A carbon fiber driveshaft ensures that weight is evened out around a 50:50 front/rear distribution while sending power from the front-mounted 5.2-liter supercharged V8 to the rear wheels through an eight-speed double-clutch rear transaxle. When fueled up with premium, that V8 puts out up to 800 hp and has Ford targeting the type of sub-7-second Nürburgring time usually reserved for specially tuned performers from well-known European badges like Mercedes, Lamborghini and Porsche.

Ford does some special tuning of its own to ensure the Mustang can finesse through the Nordschleife's unforgiving bends, adding the first-ever dry-sump engine oil system for a road-going Mustang to keep things lubricated through demanding corners. The semi-active suspension system that Ford calls a first of its kind switches between two spring rates and ride heights (road and track) using Multimatic's adaptive spool valve damping system. Track mode enables a height drop of nearly 1.6 in (40 mm).

The driver can manage traction control via Ford's first Variable Traction Control system, available in track mode. The system lets the pilot modulate engine output and traction control input via steering wheel-mounted controls, matching settings to their driving ability and track conditions.

It has a Mustang-like profile, just radically different from the average
Ford

All fun needs to end at some point, and the GTD's gets put to a stop via Brembo carbon-ceramic discs grinding the 20-in forged magnesium wheels to standstill. Specially developed ducts below the rear suspension help to cool the rear discs.

"Mustang GTD shatters every preconceived notion of a supercar," promises Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO. "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 fiber Mustang body and unleashes it for the street."

Really feeling the new reveal, Farley added: "We’re throwing down the gauntlet. I’ll take track time in a Mustang GTD against any other auto boss in their best road car."

The Ford Mustang GTD at The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering
Ted7, Kahn Media

Farley will be taking the wheel inside a driver-optimized interior with a hand-selected grouping of high-performance parts. The two track-ready front seats come from Recaro, while the available titanium paddle shifters, rotary dial and serial plate are 3D printed from titanium recycled from retired Lockheed Martin F-22 parts. The rear seats have been pulled out to cut weight and make up for the lack of a trunk.

Ford plans to launch the 2025 Mustang GTD in late 2024/early 2025. Each model will start around US$300,000, and we'll bet the average price will push well north of there given the number of options that seem like must-haves, including the body kit, hydraulic controlled wing and front flaps, and titanium exhaust. Each model will be built at Ford's Flat Rock Assembly Plant before being shipped over to Multimatic's Markham, Canada facility, where it will be completed and hand-tuned for race-inspired performance by a team of Ford Performance and Multimatic pros.

Watch some dramatized Mustang GTD action below.

Source: Ford

View gallery - 16 images
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Flipboard
  • LinkedIn
9 comments
P51d007
THAT is NO Mustang! That is a "Euro" looking bunch of plastic & fiberglass plastered all over the place!
Been a fan of the stang since 64. Except for the Mustang II's, THIS one really sucks!
RFM
Two points here: (1) the designers seemed to throw every bob & whistle at the body (air scoop by the rear tires, really?) and a mounting point for the rear spoiler that is perfect for creating a large blind spot, and (2) it will still drive just like a Ford Mustang. When I rented a Mustang a few years ago, I found driving with any speed on the freeway to be a white knuckle experience. My impression for this body design is 'American Gawdy'.
Rocky Stefano
450k after options n taxes in Canada. For a Mustang? Drove a high-end 100k model a few years back. Craftsmanship is garbage. For that money I would go with anything Euro before that crap.
guzmanchinky
BORRRRRRINNGGGGGG! Make an electric AWD Mustang already and blow the pants off everything twice the price!
Nelson Hyde Chick
What we have here is just another evercompensation device for the lesser endowed rich guy.
clay
w00f.
GS10X
"... has Ford targeting the type of sub-7-second Nürburgring time ..."

Good to see Ford shooting for the stars for a sub-7 second time.
jayedwin98020
Really not much of the Mustang heritage is left.

And that rear spoiler looks like it was a complete after thought!
Ranscapture
@GS10X I know, it’s pretty awesome I’m sure if they make it that record will hold for some time.