4 Family Vehicles With More Horsepower Than A Ford Mustang GT

In no universe is the Ford Mustang GT considered "underpowered." Its 5.0-liter V8 throws down 480 horsepower (486 horsepower with the active exhaust upgrade) and it's pretty widely considered one of the most iconic modern muscle cars on the market. Its optional six-speed manual, litany of aftermarket parts, and mean and aggressive styling ensures that the current generation Mustang GT and all of its many stablemates in the Mustang family probably won't ever go out of style.

Still, in the age of EVs and super SUVs, 486 horsepower puts the GT at a power disadvantage against quite a few family cars. When you throw in all the supercharged, turbocharged, hybrid, or otherwise speedy grocery getters on the market, the Mustang GT looks downright pokey. 

BMW, Lamborghini, and even a few American automakers like Cadillac have outdone the gold standard of muscle cars in the horsepower department. The Mustang GT might look cooler than a family-hauler, but it might lose the power competition.

The Cadillac Escalade V-Series might be one of the most ridiculous vehicles currently offered for sale. It's utterly huge, weighing in at a maximum 6,519 pounds, and can seat up to eight people. It can also tow up to 7,200 pounds. But here's the kicker. It's powered by a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 right out of a Corvette Z06.

That results in an SUV that can accelerate to 60 miles per hour in 4.4 seconds, or, about a tenth of a second slower than the Mustang GT. 

The Mustang is sleek, compact and perfect for long journeys carving down canyon roads, but you definitely can't carry all that much cargo with it. The Cadillac Escalade V-Series, on the other hand, can carry an entire baseball team and all of their gear, while still doing burnouts. To be fair to the Mustang GT, however, the Escalade V-Series is also more than three times the cost of the 'Stang, starting at $168,000. Yikes. 

The Lucid Gravity is a bit of an oddball if you try to classify it. It looks like an electric minivan from some angles and a big SUV from others. It is also absurdly quick, putting it well into sports car territory, with the base model having a 0-60 time of 4.0 seconds and the top trim accomplishing the feat in 3.1 seconds. 

Horsepower-wise, all trims exceed the Mustang GT mark. The Gravity Touring puts out 560 horsepower, the Gravity Grand Touring steps it up to 828 horsepower, and the yet-to-be-released Gravity GT-S is projected to have 1,070 horsepower. That not only annihilates the poor Mustang GT in the horsepower category, but it also beats a few supercars in numbers alone. That's more than the first run of the Bugatti Veyron. 

The real winner here might be the Gravity Grand Touring, as it has "only" 828 horsepower, but it also has a range of an estimated 450 miles, according to Lucid. 

The BMW X5 M Competition measures in at 617 horsepower from its twin-turbo 4.4-liter V8, an engine that's not too dissimilar from the powerplant featured in the monstrous BMW M5. The Mustang GT never stood a chance. All that power affords the X5 M Competition a 0-60 time of 3.7-seconds.

As for what "Competition" you'll be doing a with a five-seater, 5,498 pound SUV, that's between you and your car insurance company, but any way you put it, the X5 M Competition is a powerhouse. 

As you would expect with any BMW with an "M" suffix, it's not inexpensive either. It starts at $131,000 and that's before any options. The BMW X5 M Competition is quicker off the line and quite a lot more powerful than the 'Stang GT, but it also costs more than double the price. All that German engineering comes at a cost. 

No power list would be complete without an entry from Lamborghini. The Lamborghini Urus SE Performante here makes a total of 800 horsepower from its twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 and electric motors. It also has a 0-60 time of 3.3 seconds. Anything with a Lamborghini badge is probably going to be a lot quicker and more powerful than your average Ford, so there's not much a surprise there.

Still, it's amusing to imagine a luxury performance SUV beating a muscle car icon off the line. Like most entries on this list, the Urus SE Performante is not really a vehicle for us mere mortals. It was just announced last month, and Lamborghini is generally hesitant to post MSRPs on its site, but Motortrend estimates the super Urus to cost around $320,000. So you can either buy a house and a Mustang GT, or a giant Italian SUV. 

Horsepower is oftentimes very expensive and in this case it speaks with an Italian accent.