The dark horse of muscle cars

Photo: David Thomson

ROAD TEST

What’s new?

It’s not often that Drivesouth tests a new car that’s already sold out, but such is the case with the Ford Mustang Dark Horse featured today.

Ford New Zealand landed a supply of 150 of this flagship Mustang variant. Ample for a specialist muscle car joining the GT in the Mustang range, during a time of economic recession, you might have thought.

However, the allocation sold in double-quick time. All that’s left now is a handful of dealer cars at the original sticker price, and some low-kilometre recent purchases being privately resold at inflated asking prices.

High demand has been driven by limited availability of the most performance-focused street-legal factory-produced Mustang to date. A vehicle differentiated from the regular GT, not just by a few body-kit tweaks, but by engine, steering, brake and suspension changes that upgrade its performance slightly and, more importantly, enhance its dynamics too.

Under the bonnet, the eager 5.0-litre Coyote V8 steps up with additional cooling and internal changes including a new induction system and high-performance connecting rods. Peak torque is unchanged from the regular GT motor at 567Nm, but power lifts to 373kW.

A sturdy K-brace is added under the bonnet to increase rigidity. Also fitted are heavy-duty front shock absorbers, a larger rear sway bar, a limited slip differential, MagneRide adaptive damping, Brembo brakes and Pirelli P Zero performance tyres.

Performance purists are waxing lyrical about the six-speed manual version (originally listed at $116,900), but the $2000 cheaper cruiser’s choice — as supplied for appraisal — takes a 10-speed auto with a manual mode and paddle shifts tucked behind the steering wheel.

What does it look like?

The seventh-generation Mustang looks sleek, muscular and aggressive in GT fastback guise, and the Black Horse takes things further with its unique grille, additional air intakes and sharper lines.

The bulged wheel arches are nicely filled by dark-alloy 19-inch wheels, with blue six-pot Brembo brake callipers tucked away behind the spokes while quad exhausts and a boot-mounted rear wing add menace at the back.

Photo: David Thomson

Among several striking paint options Vapor Blue Metallic is referenced as one of the best. It coloured the test car and lived up to billing with its shifting hues and sheens, to the point that in clear late evening light the panel edges emitted a striking orange glow.

Mustang Dark Horse is significant as Ford’s first new performance nameplate in years, so it was no surprise that the conventional galloping horse emblem only features on the grille, while the Dark Horse logo adorns the car’s flanks and tail. And if you are wondering about Ford’s blue oval badge, be prepared to look hard; there is only one, discreetly positioned on the middle top of the windscreen; I only spotted it on my final day with the car.

What’s it like inside?

The cabin doesn’t scream premium, but is nicely done all the same.

Up front there are excellent Recaro sports seats, with a mix of cloth, artificial leather and micro-suede trims, blue bolsters and contrast stitching. Helped by power adjustment for the squab and lumbar support, the driver’s seat adjusts easily for occupants of different heights.

The view forwards and to the sides is surprisingly good, and while rear visibility is compromised by thick C-pillars, blind-spot monitoring mitigates the situation.

The dash has soft touch surfaces across the top, and in the middle an imposing side-by side 12.4-inch digital instrument cluster and 13.2-inch centre touchscreen, flanked by angular air vents.

The double screen breaks new ground for the Mustang, highlighting Ford’s bid to attract younger, tech-savvy buyers to its performance line. On the other hand, alienating the older set isn’t part of the plan and if you dive into the screens’ sub-menus — you can call up a digital rendering of the analogue dials from days gone by.

A panel beneath the lower vents features the car’s red start button to the left, audio volume knob to the right and quick-access buttons in between which short cut to key functions on the touchscreen.

USB A and C sockets and a 12V plug point sit just above the grippy, padded phone charge pad. Behind this set up there’s a fairly conventional gear shift, dual cupholders and decent-sized lidded centre bin.

The handbrake is interesting, being an electronic one disguised as a mechanical lever. It functions as a normal park brake in everyday use (push down to release, pull up to lock), but in track mode it becomes a drift brake, able to induce sideways, tyre-smoking, power-on, oversteer. Not something Drivesouth tried on test to be fair, but doubtless fun, though in everyday use a bit fiddly.

Running Ford’s SYNC 4 system, the touchscreen can be used to display extra performance information include G-forces. The instrument cluster is similarly open to customisation, according to drive mode or driver preference.

Photo: David Thomson

Although it’s an awkward clamber in, the two rear pews are more usable than they look. While not recommended for long haul or regular use due to limited leg and head room, they provided adequate short-hop accommodation for a trim 170cm tall adult.

The deep boot provides a decent 382 litres of space, and the rear seats can fold down to store extra luggage. There is a snag though, which is that gear is loaded through a pretty small boot opening.

What comes as standard?

The Dark Horse ticks most of the same creature comfort and convenience features as the regular GT, including keyless entry, a 12-speaker Bose sound system and dual zone climate control. The dual-screen set up is neatly executed, and Ford’s SYNC-4 system is clear and easy to use. Wired and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity are supported, with the latter proving seamless on test.

Key safety systems are provided as part of the Ford Co-Pilot360 suite, and include adaptive radar cruise control, blind spot monitoring, lane-keeping assist and pre-collision assist with automatic emergency braking and speed limit recognition.

One of the great features of the Mustang’s various control systems — driver aids included — is that once you have dived into the various sub-menus and customised the preferred settings, they become the defaults from then on. This contrasts very positively with the modern norm of systems that revert to the most intrusive "safety" mode on every start up.

What’s it like to drive?

Slip in behind the wheel, press the start button, and unless the lowest-key "silent" mode has been pre-selected for the active exhaust, the engine comes to life with an unashamed wake-the-neighbours V8 burble. And that’s just in normal mode. With sport mode it’s louder yet, and in track mode full head-turning raucous.

Fortunately, I have some car-minded neighbours, who made a point of letting me know they loved it!

The engine is an aural delight as it revs too, and by the standards of old-school American V8s, boy can it rev. The full wallop of 597Nm of torque doesn’t land until 4900rpm, while the 373kW power peak (achievable only running 98 Octane fuel) arrives beyond 7000rpm.

Playing out the soundtrack to full effect requires sustained hard acceleration at full throttle; that’s hard to achieve more than briefly on public roads because the Dark Horse auto sprints from rest to the legal limit in just 4.7 seconds.

Still, one of the great qualities that sets the best American muscle cars apart from European counterparts is their ability to please as a boulevard cruiser as well as in full-noise mode.

Photo: David Thomson

Like the Corvette C8 tested on these pages back in 2023, the Mustang Dark Horse excels in that regard. Not only does it sound great loafing around town, but it is also mechanically tractable and rides with slow-speed comfort. The highway cruise is easy enough too, though those fast, low-profile Pirelli performance tyres are undeniably noisy on coarse-chip seal.

Unleashed through a few choice twists-and-turns, the Dark Horse demanded sports mode to show its best.

IN this configuration, throttle response and gearshifts sharpen, the suspension firms, and the steering — precise though not fulsome for feel — gains some welcome extra heft.

Thus enabled, the test car was a vehicle transformed, punching between corners and hunkering down through them, while sounding great, involving the driver and, in my case, putting a smile on the dial of the friend along for the ride.

When driving with verve, making use of the paddle shift controls adds greatly to driver involvement. It smooths progress too, by eliminating the overly abrupt downshift seemingly caused by the gearbox having a few more ratios than its electronic brain can handle under pressure when left to make its own call.

There are other things to get used to, some of which relate to reacquainting with old-school front-engine, rear-drive balance. A number of these would be great to explore more freely on the track.

For one thing, while the test car gripped impressively through corners, it squirmed under hard braking. A fractionally delayed response to initial turn in reminds you that there is fair bit of mass involved, and once the traction control modes are loosened, the car can drift wide and even break traction exiting slower corners under full throttle.

If I also revealed the brakes got more than averagely warm on the back-road portion of the test, you might correctly deduce that it involved more than a brief few corners too.

For those that want to explore the full performance envelope, there’s both a track mode and a drag strip mode. These modes sharpen the car’s throttle and gearshift responses, but in track mode the suspension is fully stiffened for optimal handling (and in my view is too stiff for back road use), while in drag strip mode it is softened at the rear to provide maximum traction when launching off the line.

At the opposite extreme, there’s a slippery road mode, which mutes throttle response and maximises stability and control in low-traction situations such as snow, ice or heavy rain.

Switching between the pre-set drive modes is easily done via the steering-wheel controls, and a mix-and-match individual mode is also provided for tailoring to a driver’s everyday preferences. There also a handy shortcut button that leads straight to the exhaust noise settings to enable — for example — round town driving in normal mode, but with exhaust emitting more obvious bark.

Driving a mighty V8 with vim isn’t a practice that rewards with great economy; let’s just say that the standard cycle return for the Dark Horse is 13.8l/100km, and while potentially achievable on a softly-softly highway cruise, I fell well short of the mark on test.

Photo: David Thomson

As far as thirst goes for the wider Mustang family, Ford might take some solace in the fact that its all-electric Mustang — the Mach-E — outsold internally-combusting Mustangs in the United States last year.

Verdict

Quick, yet tractable, dynamically accomplished and possessed of an intoxicating V8 sound track, the Dark Horse takes Ford’s factory-standard Mustang to a new level.