Ford Mustang GTD – New Sub-7Min ‘Ring Monster ｜ 4K

The Ford Mustang GTD recently became the first American car to smash the seven-minute barrier at the Nürburgring. Despite cold conditions and in places a slightly damp surface, the 815 horsepower Mustang recorded a 657.685 with Dirk Muller at the wheel. The naysayers will scoff that a 992 GT3 RS outgunned by nearly 300 horsepower is nearly eight and a half seconds down the road, but we say getting a Mustang to this sort of time is borderline miraculous, which is why we visited Ford's technical partner Multimatic Special Vehicle Operations in Toronto, Canada to take a much closer look at this completely new breed of Mustang. Multimatic, who by the way also make the AMG One hypercar for Mercedes, the Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro and Porsche's 963, which races in IMSA, WEC and at Le Mans. They're also a trusted partner for Ferrari, providing suspension for the 296 and Puro Sangue, and they supply pretty much the entire F1 grid with their spool valve damper technology. But their ties with Ford are also really strong. They developed the third generation GT, the road car and the race car, and they took Ford back to the top step at Le Mans with a GTE Pro class win in 2016. But that relationship continues to this day. We've got Mustang GT4s being made over here, there are GT3 cars too. They're going to compete in 280 races this season, plus we have some other cool stuff. This is the Ford GT Mk4, 1.7 million dollars, 800 horsepower, 1150 kilos of downforce, just the ultimate iteration of this third generation Ford GT and our old friend. We experienced the DR on TG2 Cars and Stripes last year and loved every minute. A turnkey desert racer with a 5-litre Coyote V8, it's unstoppable, sounds completely wild and does very big jumps. But today is all about this car, the GTD, and we're going to be introduced to it by Todd Valentine, program manager for the GTD, who's going to let us look at the final car but also give us some nitty-gritty detail on it. Todd, come in here, tell us about your baby. Thanks for coming out here today, Jethro. Okay, we're going to get into detail in a minute, but first, no one's really seen it in a almost production intent way, so let's let's take this off. Let's take a peek. Nice, wow, I can't believe this thing is a... She's a beauty. ...production car, that is amazing. It's nice to see it in some colours. Okay, so, wow, it looks crazy, doesn't it? Now, I know the basics of this car, radically evolved Mustang, track focused but road legal, you're going for this sub-seven minute lap of the ring, 800 horsepower, all the good stuff, but let's get into some detail. Tell me everything. Well, you start out at 800 horsepower, at least 800 horsepower, right? So, starting off with the engine, it starts off with a 5.2 supercharged, you know, V8, and we're able to achieve that 800 plus horsepower by really managing the intake and exhaust losses on this vehicle. So, we got, you know, a massive intake in the front and then we've got a titanium exhaust in the rear to further reduce those losses. Since we shot this video, Ford has announced the final figures for this mighty dry sump tension. The GTD has 815 horsepower and 664 foot-pounds of torque and will hit 202 miles an hour. In order to get that power to the road, it's really about the tyre. Yeah. So, we got 325s in the front, 345s in the rear, right? I can't think of any road car ever that's had a bigger footprint than this. So, I know that engine for the GT500 and love it, it's fantastic. Like you say, turning shouldn't be an issue with 325s and I'm sure traction's going to be good too, but there's something new as well in that the transmission is now a transaxle, correct? Correct, right? So, in order for us to really achieve that 50-50 weight distribution, we got an eight-speed DCT transaxle in the rear, right? So, we got a high torque capacity transaxle in the rear and it just turns this thing into a track car, right? More so than any other Mustang before it. Yeah, again, GT500, which is sort of my reference, the gearbox on that car is already fantastic. So, I know you've repositioned it, but are we going to expect even faster shift speeds and everything is ramped up? It's the next generation, right? So, it's going to be a little bit faster than what you had on the GT500, right? But it's awesome. We'll get onto aero in a second. Carbon ceramic brakes? Absolutely, right? Six-piston Brembo's in the front, four pistons in the rear and carbon ceramic brakes. You've got forged mag wheels, you know, all around. So, fantastic setup. And what about, I think about this car, 800 horsepower, I'm thinking, okay, it could be relatively a handful at times. What electronic systems have you got? Are there variable traction controls? We do, we've got a variable traction control system and that works in conjunction with our active aero system as well. Okay, suspension, again, very, very different. So, we're used to struts up front, multi-link sort of rear axle arrangement. Where have we gone to with this? So, we've got an SLA front suspension, we've got an inboard suspension that we'll talk about in a bit, and then this is really using Multimatic's ASV suspension technology. So, we've got dual ride height, dual rate suspension, lowers it about, you know, 40 millimetres in the front, 30 millimetres or so in the rear, drops it down for track performance. Okay, I mean, the whole thing is just a track monster, isn't it really? The inboard rear dampers are super cool, we'll have a look at those when we're in the car in a minute, but obviously aero is king with this car. Absolutely. So, take me through the aero. I think you have active aero on this as well as the stuff I can see. We do, we have active aero and really this vehicle form follows function. You take a look at the massive, you know, front fender vents, massive splitter in the front, right, and it all couples together with our active aero system. So, we've got, you know, active aero in the front, flaps on the front to manage the airflow, we've got a full underbody floor, and then when we come back, you know, really it's the rear wing, you know, with the active aero and the drag reduction system. Yeah, this is quite a rear wing. So, we've got the sort of swan neck, top mounted supported wing, which is more efficient, but yeah, tell us about the active element of this. It doesn't do an airbrake, it's more of the tail. Right, it's not active airbrake, but what this is, this is the drag reduction system. So, you see this airfoil here will pivot up and down, you know, for the drag reduction system. Okay, so as you can see, this is a comprehensive and unbelievably radical take on the Mustang. Todd, thank you for your time. Thank you. I'm going to climb into this thing and get an impression of what it might feel like to be in the GTD. So, it's Mustang radically evolved and distended on the outside, but the interior for the most part is, well, very Mustang like. Although it has at least one very cool feature that showcases the engineering length sought to make this a proper GT3 RS rival. So, this is the inboard pushrod operated adaptive spool valve suspension setup, and it looks glorious. It really is an engineering artwork. It certainly raises the whole level of how this car feels. I love that. I think that's a genius idea. Now we get to the rest of it, and like I said, it is basically Mustang in here. There's some trick bits. There's the steering wheel is basically the same size and shape as the standard car. This is proper carbon fibre on the wheel. This is still a prototype, so we've got a big kill switch here. You will not get that on your car. I would quite like it, actually. There are some really cool things. So, these gearshift paddles. So, 8-speed transaxle. I mean, that's pretty cool, isn't it, already? But the gearshift paddles are 3D printed titanium, and the titanium is sourced from decommissioned F22 fighter jets. So, that's quite good, isn't it? And you also get the same material around the gear selector down here. Again, it's all pretty similar to Mustang, but we do have a track mode down here. We have a favourites mode. There's traction control. There's also a nose lift that I can see. And then on the steering wheel, I've got an exhaust button, a suspension button, and then there are modes. Now, I don't know if I'm allowed to find out what all those modes are, but I'm going to start the car and then cycle through the button and see what it says. They haven't told me what they are, so let's start it. Sounds like a Mustang, which is a good thing. Okay, I like that. I do like that. Let's see what modes I have. I have normal mode, custom mode, slippery mode, drag strip mode, which seems odd, track mode, sport mode. It's pretty funky graphics. And then if I hit this one, I think I'll get track suspension mode and it will go down. This GT style ride height system hasn't been talked about much, but should give great flexibility and completely change the game for the GTD on smoother tracks. Although it appears to even use this mode on the Nürburgring. Things that I am disappointed about, the seats feel okay, but I want a carbon fibre shell bucket seat really for that money. I'd also quite like the option of a cage of some description, just give me that like super special track ride. So nobody is buying a GTD for the interior, but the car is captivating and fascinating. Can it really be as effective and exciting as a GT3 RS? It would be a hell of an achievement if it even gets close. But yeah, that's the GTD on the inside. I like that. That bit feels special. So that is just a little insight into this amazing project. We got some great information from Todd, but fresh off the plane from London, we have Multimatic SVO's driving force, Larry Holt here. So it would be rude not to speak to him. Larry, thank you for talking to us. We've got loads of great details already on this car, but I want you in 60 seconds to tell everyone why they should want a Mustang GTD. Well, first of all, because it's awesome. It's going to be the most hot rodded Mustang hot rod ever. I'm going to compete with cars like the AMG GT, Porsche GT3 RS. We've already had it out on the Autobahn, so we know it's better than the Porsche on the Autobahn. We've had it in Nurburgring, but right now we're just bedding it in and making sure that it'll go around there. And then our first target is get it under seven minutes. We're pretty confident it's going to do that. So it's based on a race car. That's another, I mean, if you look at the GT3 car we're running and this car, you know, if you quick glance, they look like the same car. It's full of really cool suspension, inboard suspension, double ride height, double rate. I mean, it's got all the same kind of stuff that the Ford GT had in a Mustang. So yeah, it's just awesome. So there it is from the man himself. This car is, I've been a bit blown away by the detail on it in person. Can't wait to drive it. And as he said, it's going to be awesome.