The Mustang GTD Isn't The Supercar Ford Wants You To Think It Is. That's Its Biggest Strength

When Ford unveiled the Mustang GTD at Monterey Car Week two years ago, all the racecar tech promised the most hardcore Mustang ever built for public roads. Then late last year, the GTD cracked the seven-minute mark for a lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife, before improving that time by about five seconds earlier this year.

Clearly, the GTD's racecar roots shine strong, despite starting life as a "regular" Mustang. Canadian chassis experts at Multimatic then get to work with a ton of modifications, bolting on carbon-fiber everywhere possible, installing active aerodynamics, and swapping the gearbox to the rear in a "transaxle" layout with inboard pushrod suspension mounted above using Multimatic's adaptive spool-valve system.

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I spotted my first privately owned GTD at Monterey just last month, an easily recognizable car bedecked in an absurd paintjob specced by Galpin Ford president and CEO Beau Boeckmann. Still, when I received an invite to the media launch at SoCal's Thermal Club shortly thereafter, I can admit to arriving with some healthy skepticism. The GTD looks hardcore, yes, but specs on paper previewed the potential for somewhat a different story. After all, 815 horsepower sounds great but, somehow, the GTD weighs a hefty 4,386 pounds—or about 1,500 pounds more than the GT3 racecar's minimum weight, despite the use of all that carbon.

The first driving experience across two days at Thermal immediately challenged those specs, too, because Ford started us off on an autocross circuit. The goal of introducing journalists to the GTD within a more controlled environment made sense, yet tight turns never seemed likely to show off the attributes of a car so big and powerful, with the advantages of active aero and carbon-ceramic brakes rendered almost useless. Still, I enjoyed the gut-punch of supercharged V8 torque off the line, torching the rear tires and sussing out the transaxle layout's weight distribution.

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Autocross also afforded me a change to acquaint myself with the GTD's various drive modes. Multimatic's ASV system uses electric solenoids in the dampers to provide quick responses for the spool valves, but selecting Track mode then effectively locks out one of the springs on each coilover to double the spring rates. Unlike the Ferrari Purosangue, the GTD still uses sway bars to manage body roll, though a little display back in the paddock revealed quite possibly the thinnest sway bar ever used on a Mustang.

Next to that display, Chief Program Engineer Greg Goodall explained how the GTD came about with two main priorities: achieving a rating above 800 horsepower and targeting a goal of that sub-seven-minute Nürburgring time. He acknowledged the Catch 22 of upping the GT3 racecar's output from 550 to 815 ponies, which then dictated beefier components throughout the driveline and therefore all the modifications to the base Mustang to help compensate for so much additional weight.

"What we really used to dictate the performance of the vehicle and guide our decisions was our overall laptime capability," he told me. "That time is a function of weight, but also aero and power. So we really try to balance all the equations on this to get the lap time."

"Steering and handling then becomes the priority," Goodall continued. "How can we make a racecar that can go do this Nürburgring record, and then come out here and still drive on the road? We definitely had trade-off discussions, on what we'd go after and what we wouldn't. But going with the 800-plus horsepower seemed like a very American way to go about this. So then you've got the power, we've got a transaxle car, really awesome pushrod suspension for the rear..."

Unfortunately, rather than showing off all that power, the active aero, and the suspension revisions, Ford then dropped me into a Mustang Dark Horse for lead-follow lapping around Thermal the rest of the day. The Dark Horses all struggled while lapping segments of Thermal's "IndyCar" layout, which stretches to 3.067 miles long in total, as perhaps expected of a lower-spec, naturally aspirated, manual transmission-equipped Mustang variant.

The next morning aimed to prioritize more time in the GTD. But unfortunately (again), the plans went awry almost from the start. First, the same lead-follow instructors climbed back into Dark Horses, while journalists followed in GTDs. But with "just" 500 horsepower and a manual, while attempting to prevent more oil temp and fuel starvation limp modes, the lead drivers caused traffic jams for the more powerful chasers. 

Even at maybe two-thirds pace, though, I noticed just how much the GTD's steering feedback and suspension and tires improved upon the Dark Horse—of course, that's a low bar, but perhaps intentionally highlighting the gap in capability was Ford's goal all along.

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Still, even throughout just those easy first few minutes, I also noticed a fair amount of violent porpoising on the straights that upset the suspension. Hopefully, I figured, the next round of solo lapping at more serious pace might help the GTD's aerodynamic downforce engage and prevent the jarring vertical seesaw motion.

Before pulling out for my first solo lap without a Dark Horse to hold me back, one of Ford's engineers asked me not to rev to redline until the engine oil readout showed 170 degrees. The original lead-follow warmup only pushed the engine hard enough to get up to 135, so I figured that just one more easy out lap or less should get me up to temp. While glancing down at the gauges braking into turn four, though, I spied a warning message popping up. Then a series of messages.

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The chain started with an active aero fault, which caused a suspension fault, which made the selected drive mode unavailable, which then–because the GTD can't get out of Track mode while not in Park–limited the top speed to 80 miles per hour. My first thought returned to the porpoising. Maybe the original aero fault indicated some kind of disconnect between the front and rear suspension settings?

Four-ways on and sweating with embarrassment at the thought of having broken the car on my first solo lap, I cruised back to the pit at 80 mph and pulled up to a gathering crowd. Engineers took my testimony, checked the messages, and escorted me over to another waiting GTD to head out again. The slow lap cost me a few minutes, so I only got another few in the new car—which also needed to warm up—to round out my first stint.

Suspicions started to grow, though. This car, with no faults showing, also started porpoising early and kept doing so despite me starting to ramp up my inputs. I set VTC to the fifth level and explored firmer and firmer braking, harder cornering, and deeper hits of throttle. Whenever the GTD dipped the nose into corners, the suspension settled. Same while leaned over onto the outside tires, and then transitioning into hard acceleration sections. Even the quick chicanes and S-turns felt stable, as the GTD flicked side to side with an easy grace that entirely belied the claimed curb weight.

Only steady-state straights and light braking seemed to cause the porpoising—but then again, I clearly needed to push even harder, turning down the VTC to better find the limit of those gargantuan Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires, before reaching any kind of conclusion. After a long cooldown lap, I returned to the pit to get an explanation of the fault messages: Apparently, a piece of rubber or pebble likely popped up into a suspension sensor and locked out the DRS, which caused the rest of the cascading error messages. Alright, a bit of a design flaw given that I'd been out on the track with nobody leading at the time, but hopefully the same thing would not happen again!

For my second stint, I turned the VTC down to three and focused on finding the GTD's happy place. Faster and faster, further and further into the throttle pedal earlier and earlier. My top speeds dropped off, which I attributed to the escalating heat on a humid day (relatively speaking, for the desert) causing the ECU to draw back ignition timing in the name of charged air temps, and yet the GTD handled everything I threw out for a series of increasingly harder laps.

Consciously trying to trust downforce and the unbelievable braking from the 420-millimeter front and 370-millimeter rear carbon-ceramics then caused a bit of issue for the Recaro seats and—specifically—the lack of racing harnesses. My HANS device prevented the initial punch from snapping my neck forward, but the three-point safety belt and the seat's lack of truly supportive bolsters for my lanky six-foot-one frame let me slide around a bit more than preferable. And yet still I wanted to brake later, set the nose harder, start to truly determine where the car's engineering and the Michelin tires worked best together.

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Ford declined to share total downforce delta between DRS on and off, but the max figure of 1,951 pounds at 180 miles per hour with the flaps doing their darnedest sounds fairly substantial. I watched the rear spoiler actuate repeatedly, but struggled to find a pattern given my relatively paltry number of laps. The inactive aero still managed well, though, the enormous front splitter and dive planes and enormous swan-neck rear spoiler mounted directly to the chassis to prevent from crushing the rear trunk lid—itself a part of the aero system to enhance cooling over the transaxle's radiator—and I never once reached the full chatter of ABS, to my great chagrin.

Theoretically, even on a fairly hot Thermal day, heat soak issues for the GTD's engine and gearbox shouldn't cause any issues, but I still kept any eye on the gauges—both to check for temps but also in case any more warnings popped up after that initial hiccup. I also tried to mess with an automatic upshift system, which seems to make sense but in the end only caused a few problems with badly timed shifts on longer sweepers. Then I heard a few messages blatter through over the radio, barely audible due to the booming Akrapovic exhaust, and my second stint came to an end. Next time, no VTC, I vowed.

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But next time would never come to fruition, because the morning sessions wrapped up after just two stints per journalist. Why? Ford's team of engineers on hand at Thermal kept taking the cars away for 25-30 minutes after each stint. And not just my problem child. Ostensibly, the process of checking tire pressures, re-torquing lug nuts, clearing the wheels and brakes of debris, and topping up on fuel took that long. But I called balderdash, and tried to quiz the engineers about what, exactly, kept causing the long delays. And everyone on hand struggled not to suspect concerns about heat, about breakdowns, about faults and data logging and ECU tuning...

A sense of secrecy pervaded the entire program, actually. Especially because of how many other questions about the GTD went unanswered over the course of the launch—including, but not limited to, how much the cars we drove actually cost, how many Ford plans to build, the downforce delta, and even simpler questions like when the magnesium wheels might arrive or the fuel injector flow rates.

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After my second stint on track, Ford pulled all the cars to swap on new tires for the road drive that afternoon, as well as to reinstall the metal grilles on the hood heat extractors. And out on public roads—where the Recaro bolsters made a bit more sense—it quickly became apparent that the GTD felt much more at home.

Ripping up the Palm to Pines Highway, a typical drive route familiar to most SoCal car enthusiasts, the supercharged V8 that felt quick but not overtly beefy on track all of a sudden took on a new character. Blip the left paddle, pedal to the mat, and the whining quickly ramped up to a booming roar, never overwhelming in sheer acceleration terms but absolutely thrilling from every sensory input.

Barking exhaust, steering so dialed the Mustang heritage entirely evaporated, I hauled through corners truly hooting and hollering. The GTD's enormous fenders and front track limit the number of lines through any bend in the road, skirting the edges of lanes without even trying, but the electrifying experience exceeded even my wildest dreams for the car.

I simply never thought a Mustang could ever drive so well. The tall gear ratios also made more sense, since I actually enjoyed short shifting and letting the boost build as the engine wound up through revs. Traction control on the iffy desert roads even worked well, as the Multimatic suspension's impressive scope of capability between Normal, Sport, and Track allowed me to dial in the proper amount of compliance and body roll for the given surface.

The smooth racetrack at Thermal revealed hints of porpoising due to, in my estimation, slightly challenged roll couple between the more standard Mustang front end geometry and the upgraded rear end's inboard pushrods. But I never noticed the off-putting sensation on even the roughest portions of tarmac that afternoon, a welcome respite from the chop.

Needing to pull over and shift into Park to actually activate Track mode still contributed to a bit of frustration, though, as the sluggish cars I easily left behind then passed by again while the ASV system visibly contracted through the rear looking glass. Once in Track mode, though the slammed stance looks gnarly, somehow the GTD still never scraped all too much—a welcome relief given how much carbon fiber I seriously wanted to preserve. 

I also started to wonder about the Cup 2 R tires, which typically lack a bit of feedback at the edge that I believe the GTD's sheer mass helped to mitigate, but probably won't do great for driving year round in every weather condition. And of course, the DCT also lurched a fair amount at lower speeds, as usual.

Blasting up a quintessential mountain road revealed exactly where the GT3 racecar ends and the GTD road car begins. Those additional 1,500 pounds (or so) actually contribute to predictability and comfort for everyday life with a GTD, as well as on a more hard-charging canyon run. But the sheer weight also takes away from the terrifying, precise supercar scalpel experience that building something significantly lighter with this kind of power level might allow.

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Yet the quandaries only continue to build, because Ford still priced the GTD in legit supercar territory at $327,960 to start. Sure, the switch to a transaxle and the advanced Multimatic suspension working in concert with active aero requires development costs, and the result is undeniably the most hardcore factory Mustang ever. Yet those tradeoff discussions clearly also included retaining an interior that looks decidedly low rent for a car that can easily eclipse half-a-million bucks when fully optioned. As the most basic detail: nothing at this price point should come with a gear selector dial, even one with a carbon-fiber trim surround.

I also struggled not to think back to the latest from Shelby American, the Super Snake-R that debuted at Monterey's opening soiree, Motorlux, this year. Shelby similarly took a Mustang, tuned the engine to crank out even more power than a GTD, designed a similarly wild body kit and—critically—offered an optional six-speed manual. And still priced it less than the GTD, at $224,995 to start.

Maybe a stick-shift transaxle a la Porsche's 928/944/etc lacked the racecar edge for that Nürburgring time or the precision to match true supercar aspirations that Ford desperately hopes to market. But the track time and road drive alike both dispelled any such notion. Instead, the GTD emerges as something else, a new category entirely.

Despite the disappointing shortage of track time and so very many unanswered questions, I still left the desert impressed by Ford's ridiculous creation. Though I struggle to fathom why, exactly, the GTD exists—other than as an answer to a question nobody asked. I suspect that very few owners will track their cars seriously, since they might as well buy a full-on racecar at that point rather than one that's been purposefully compromised for road fun.

And then we must, of course, discuss the Corvette ZR1, Chevrolet's legit C8 supercar at a budgetary level that's at least somewhat more attainable. By comparison, Ford took a Mustang mated with a GT3 racecar and then tried to create an artificially scarce supercar, but one that's slower and more expensive even if it definitely looks better. 

So the final question remains whether the GTD will wind up as a garage queen collectible or a street takeover terror. I suspect the former far more than the latter, if only because the pricing and rarity suggest that most GTD buyers will hedge such a hefty bet on a hefty car in the hopes of finding value over the longer term rather than instantaneous gratification of something so fun to drive in the here and now.