The Ford Mustang GTD Is Officially The Most Powerful Ford Ever

Applications have now closed for the chance to buy a Ford Mustang GTD, and the lucky (and very wealthy) few that got through Ford’s surprisingly rigorous vetting process will now be patiently awaiting the arrival of their widened, bewinged and lightened pony cars.

Just to make that wait a little more excruciating, Ford has revealed the final specs of its mighty 5.2-litre supercharged V8. The headline figure is 815bhp. That makes it not just the most potent Mustang, but the most powerful Ford production car ever, full stop. Ford is very vocal about the fact that it's more bhp per litre than the Porsche 911 GT3 RS's 4.0-litre flat-six manages.

Perhaps more importantly, it’s nearly 100 more bhp than the closest rival we can think of in recent times, the 720bhp Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series. It’s joined by a peak torque figure of 664lb ft, both of help propel the GTD to a top speed of 202mph with its motorsport-style drag reduction system active (although you’ll need the optional Performance Pack to get that).

The engine’s redline, meanwhile, is now 7650rpm – up 100rpm from when this engine was fitted to the last-gen Shelby GT500. As we already know, all of this is being sent through a new eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox. Whether any of these figures take a hit on European cars in order to comply with emissions rules remains to be seen.

For the last couple of generations, the Ford Mustang has done a pretty good job of challenging preconceptions we have about the car. It’s never exactly been thought of as a proper driver’s machine, but the GTD looks to change that.

Yes, we’re aware it shares part of its name with a sporty diesel Volkswagen Golf (we suspect a few people over at Wolfsburg might be a bit irked), but we’d much rather focus on the engineering details. There’s one that stands out in particular - the size of the tyres. They’re 325mm wide at the front. That’s a width we’d associate with rear tyres on a car like this, but here, the ones at the back are 345mm wide - as big as what was used for the Ford GT.

There’s another GT link here, as Mustang GTDs will be shipped over part-way through the production cycle from the Flat Rock, Michigan assembly line to Multimatic in Canada. It was Multimatic, remember, that built the GT, and is responsible for the new Mustang GT3 racing car, which the GTD was developed in tandem with.

The GTD gets an exceptionally fancy version of Multimatic’s Dynamic Suspensions Spool Valve (DSSV) dampers, with the rear pair mounted inboard and actuated via pushrods. They’re semi-active and can vary both the spring rates and ride height. Making the GTD work for both the track and the road, it’s possible to lower the ride height in Track Mode by a whopping 40mm. The tracks, by the way, are a chunky 100mm wider than those of a Mustang GT.

It’s a suitably angry-looking car, with front wings dominated by louvred vents, a sizeable front splitter and, of course, a very big rear wing. On the aero front, there’s quite a lot of active trickery going on, with hydraulically controlled front flaps tweaking airflow that ends up at the big wing. There’s also a carbon fibre aerodynamic undertray, and the propshaft is carbon too. All of this, Ford hopes, will help the GTD achieve a sub-seven-minute run around the Nürburgring.

The interior, meanwhile, gets much suede, leather and carbon fibre, as well as a bespoke digital dash and flat-bottomed wheel allowing for on-the-fly damping and exhaust adjustments. The shift paddles are 3D-printed in titanium, and you also get a serial number plaque made from – we’re not making this up – bits of melted-down F-22 Raptor fighter jets.