The Ford Motor Company has built supercars before—like the Ford GT that took Ferrari at Le Mans—and won. Now the automaker is taking the supercar recipe to its everyday Mustang pony car, which boasts supercharged performance and a supercar price tag of around $300,000.
The Mustang GTD, which just showed up at Monterey Car Week, is essentially a Mustang GT3 road race car—but tougher than a race car, if you can believe it. Ford says the GTD is powered by its most powerful V8 engine ever, a version of the GT500’s “Predator” 5.2-liter supercharged V8, producing around 800 horsepower. In order to maintain the preferred 50/50 weight distribution, Ford is using a rear-wheel drive transmission, a first for a road-going Mustang, that will feature an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission.
“We didn’t want Aston Martin, Mercedes and Porsche to have all the fun with their cars,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told Yahoo Finance from the Quail event here at Monterey Car Week. “And we think it’s kind of the right time for us to build a Mustang at the higher end, $300,000 range.”
The GTD is also the first road-going Mustang that will use rear trunk space to house the all-new rear suspension and spring setup. A very exotic presence in racing and road cars, the GTD was equipped with an “integrated drivetrain and rocker arm”, in which the car’s active shock absorbers and coil-over-springs are arranged in a horizontal transverse pattern. It’s a very trick, race car setup, and definitely not cheap.
Indeed, this is no ordinary Mustang. While Ford wants to show the world what the company can do on the racetrack, the question becomes what buyers are willing to shell out $300,000 for a car that looks the same and is somewhat based on the $30,000 Mustang pony car.
That may be a question for another day, as the GTD, currently slated as a 2025 model year car, will be built in such a small quantity that it will likely be in great demand among car enthusiasts.
Farley on Ford’s EV transformation, and UAW talks
Farley also discussed the latest developments in the company’s electrification efforts, which see production improving, but profits at this point are still hard to come by.
“the [Model] E-business, size is just fine. We spent the first half preparing to triple production in the fourth quarter, Farley said, but profitability is really challenging. Fortunately, the other two companies are doing more than enough to offset this challenge, but what we’re seeing with [Model] E is that people just love cars, but they don’t want to pay a premium.”
Farley has been driving across the country in a Ford Lightning EV, trying to figure out what it’s like to live a day outside with an EV. He believes most of the problems we’re having with the transition to electric vehicles are human ones — planning, range anxiety and things like that — but that doesn’t mean systems like the country’s charging infrastructure don’t need to be improved.
The other big challenge for Ford is the current talks with the UAW, as the current contract expires in less than 30 days. The rhetoric on the union’s side has heated up, and auto industry experts believe the union’s demands are too stiff.
“It’s a really tough discussion; to be honest, we’re a long way off,” Farley says. Ford owns about 20% more US workers than General Motors and Stellantis, but he hopes a deal can be struck. “I believe that Ford and UW will find a way forward to ensure a future for our manufacturing base in the country. And for the middle class, we have a lot of work to do in the next 30 days.”
And these workers, after striking a deal, would build cars like the $300,000 Mustang GTD. And the car’s debut at a Quail event, during Monterey Car Week, has in Farley’s mind the setting for it—and the wealthy attendees.
“We’ve never built a Mustang in this kind of price zone, and that’s the right crowd—we want to sell a $300,000 Mustang, you’ve got to be in Quail, right?” says Farley. “This is the right place – just as if a football match is the right place for the F 150 – this is the right place for this car.”
Pras Subramanian is a correspondent at Yahoo Finance. You can follow it Twitter and on Instagram.
Click here for the latest stock market news and in-depth analysis, including the events that move stocks
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
“Unapologetic communicator. Wannabe web lover. Friendly travel scholar. Problem solver. Amateur social mediaholic.”