You might have thought that we'd already seen the ultimate version of the new Ford Mustang, in the shape of the track-day-tuned Dark Horse version, but it turns out Ford had an even more focused, hard-core Mustang up its sleeve. Welcome to the Mustang GTD.
Based on the new Le Mans racer
The GTD name comes from the GTD class in the American IMSA sports car racing series (the D is for Daytona - the famous race track in Florida) and this souped-up road-going Mustang is effectively the road-legal version of the Mustang GT3 racer which was shown off earlier this year, and which will be competing in major races such as the Le Mans 24hrs next year.
"Mustang GTD shatters every preconceived notion of a supercar," said Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO. "This is a new approach for us. 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-fibre Mustang body and unleashes it for the street."
Yup, you read that right - this is a Mustang with a carbon-fibre body. The bonnet, front wings, boot lid, front splitter, rear diffuser, and massive rear spoiler are all made from the light-but-strong space-age material. Ford hasn't quoted a weight figure yet, but expect all that carbon to add up to some lost kilos.
The rear seats are binned too, in the interests of bringing down weight, and even some of the interior trim - gearshift paddles, some switches - are made of super-light titanium which Ford says has been recycled from scrapped parts taken from F-22 'Raptor' stealth fighter jets. Now that's an option we can get behind...
Active suspension
There's also no boot anymore, as that space is filled by the machinery for the semi-active suspension, hydraulic controls, and a hefty rear axle cooling system. This is not going to be a practical Mustang.
It will be ludicrously fast, though. The long-serving 'Coyote' V8 engine has been bumped up to 5.2-litre capacity and given a supercharger, lifting its maximum power from 460hp in the standard Mustang to a whopping 800hp, or maybe slightly more, here. The engine can rev to 7,500rpm, and uses a fully active titanium exhaust. Ford hasn't yet issued any performance claims, but it does say that the Mustang GTD is aiming at a sub-seven minute Nurburgring lap time, which would put it on a par with the Mercedes AMG-GT Black Series and the Porsche 911 GT2 RS. Power goes to the rear wheels via a new eight-speed automatic dual-clutch transaxle gearbox.
That semi-active suspension can drop itself down by 40mm to provide maximum control and aero-efficiency on a race track, while the suspension is some 100mm wider than that of a standard Mustang.
Up front there are massive Brembo carbon ceramic brakes, while the wheels are 20-inch forged aluminium items, wrapped in 345mm-wide rear tyres (325mm at the front). Lighter magnesium wheels are available as an option.
Variable traction control
There's even a Mercedes-AMG-style variable traction control system, for when you're feeling very brave indeed. "The hardware has been carefully selected and developed to enable blistering lap time performance," said Greg Goodall, Ford chief program engineer, "The target for this project was clear - go much, much faster than we've ever gone before with a targeted sub-seven-minute Nurburgring time. This makes it the fastest roadgoing Mustang ever from Ford."
How much for all this V8-engined wonderfulness? Well, it's not cheap - Ford says that the US price is $300,000 so expect it to be around double that with a Euro sign in front to land one in Ireland - but it's still something of a bargain compared to rivals with similar performance. Just like the standard new Mustang, Ford says that it's not 'actively marketing' the car here, but the GTD and the standard version will be available for Irish buyers to order. Now, who among you is brave enough?