Ford’s Mustang Dark Horse is a well-balanced galloping pony
Two bites at the same sweet apple doesn’t happen often and when it’s in a Ford Mustang Dark Horse, well, it’s even tastier.
I was privileged to be present last year at the Global launch of Ford’s track-focussed Mustang Dark Horse iteration of the iconic muscle car held in Charlotte, North Carolina, home of NASCAR.
It was one of those memorable occasions where we were allowed to run free on the track of Charlotte speedway that allowed the Dark Horse to snort and gallop to its heart’s content.
Later, we drove around the city at a much more sedate pace especially after we had learnt that one of the local scribes had been fined $1,000 (R18,000) for speeding.
The Dark Horse was the first new performance name for the brand since Mustang Bullitt was introduced in 2001 and even with three generations of improvements, the Dark Horse smacks it out the park.
It’s now available in South Africa and can be yours for R1.5-million and having pushed it to close to its limits in Lesotho, If I had the moola, my order would be in.
Why Lesotho though?
The Mountain Kingdom has some of the best driving roads in the world with smooth stretches of tar that hug the contours of the mountains with hairpin corners, switchbacks, curves and bends.
In fact the longest straight we had was about 800 metres, so basically driving nirvana.
The Mustang Dark Horse takes the GT we drove a few weeks prior and sprinkles some magic dust courtesy of the people at Ford Performance.
Its piece de resistance is still the normally aspirated 5.0-litre Coyote V8 engine with dual throttle body intake design that’s been modified with piston connecting rods pushing out 334kW and 540Nm.
That’s slightly up by 6kW over the GT and a significant 39kW down on Dark Horses overseas.
It’s not Ford’s fault and neither is it unique to the Blue Oval. Other manufacturers share the same frustration as a result of our poor fuel quality and until the government decides to address it, it will stay this way.
That power is sent to the rear wheels via Ford’s 10-speed automatic transmission with a Torsen rear differential and a manual option to switch gears via paddle shifters.
Because owners are likely to be spending a lot of time close to the red line, they’ve put in a set of brake cooling ducts to keep the 390mm Brembo brakes (the rear discs are also ventilated) with six-piston calipers cool, an auxiliary engine oil cooler, a rear axle cooler, a lightweight radiator with improved cooling and more powerful cooling fans.
Under the unmistakable Mustang body the chassis has been tweaked with larger rear sway bars and heavy duty shocks while a new lightweight strut lower brace and K-brace provide better handling and fantastic feedback.
The Dark Horse features MagneRide shocks that monitor wheel and tyre movement 1,000 times a second providing a planted and very stable drive.
Rubber is provided courtesy of Pirelli P Zeros with 19x9.5-inch front rims fitted with 255/40 R19 tyres, and 19x10-inch rims at the rear wrapped by 275/40 R19 tyres.
Externally Dark Horse touches include a unique front bumper, shadow graphic around the darkened LED Tri-Bar headlights, gloss black grille, with trapezoidal nostrils and lower front bumper with high gloss ‘fangs’ and lower sideskirts.
The rear gets a race-inspired diffuser and a fixed rear wing.
Mustang Dark Horse badges are placed on the bumpers, boot and door sills and for the first time a forward facing horse has pride of place on the front.
There’s a no cost optional Appearance Pack with a magnificent Blue Ember metallic colour that literally shines, additional blue accents on the seats, black roof, unique hood graphics, dark Notorious Blue Brembo brake callipers with Grabber Blue Brembo and Mustang logos.
As I wrote in my driving impressions of the Mustang GT, the previous generation’s interior was rather outdated and a bit of a hit and miss affair.
That’s been significantly addressed with the new generation and the cockpit is a lot more driver focused.
The Dark Horse gets a thicker suede wrapped flat-bottomed steering wheel with Indigo Blue stitching and like its GT sibling, a 12.4-inch customisable digital instrument cluster.
The 13.2-inch Sync 4 infotainment system provides various customisation features and Track Apps that change the theme according to the drive mode selected.
The dashboard features the individual chassis number badge and while the first 50 units are already accounted for, Ford’s order book remains open.
But what’s it like to drive?
In short, almost breathtaking.
The GT is already a vast improvement over the previous generation and the Dark Horse takes it a notch up.
At almost 3 000 metres above sea level the normally aspirated engine loses about 20 percent of its power which isn’t necessarily a bad thing when you’re heading for the rev limiter at every opportunity. It gave us an opportunity to push it hard, and had we done the same at sea level… well, the roads had no run-offs but it would have been a fly-off down a cliff.
My colleague and I agreed that there were two things that stood out as we gunned it close to the limit. The brake pedal feel is sublime and the steering pin-point accurate and as close to perfect as you’ll find, especially on a muscle car.
Despite the rarified air and hard braking as we constantly slowed down and accelerated again there was no fade.
And when you complete 80 kilometres in 40 minutes with just twisties, you know it’s been hard and fast.
There were one or two occasions where we might have gone in too fast, and whereas the previous gen would have had a fit of understeer, the Dark Horse’s long nose lunges down and then rises again without any drama as the accelerator is pushed deep again.
It was also the perfect way to showcase all the Ford Performance goodies and give those guys a Bells.
It’s not without fault though.
The 10-speed auto 'box, although calibrated to suit the Dark Horse, wasn’t as quick as we’d like it to have been in Sport Mode. However when driving normally and the exhaust in the quiet option as opposed to scare the neighbours out of their bed loud, it becomes a quintessential GT car.
Switching to manual mode improved things considerably. There wasn’t a distinctive thud to indicate a change of cogs though and as a result we weren't always sure what gear we were in. We suspect this may have had to do with the altitude as the Dark Horse sucked in what little air there was to keep things at optimum performance.
The previous generation may have been a bit of a blunt instrument but this new Dark Horse is much more of a scalpel.
Including the Charlotte Speedway wall flying past a foot or two away, the Mustang Dark Horse has been one of the most exhilarating drives I’ve had on four wheels and with Ford insisting that the Mustang won’t disappear into the politically correct quagmire, that’s good news for petrolheads all over the world.
It comes with a six-year/90 000km Ford optional Service Plan, a four-year/120 000km warranty, four-year/unlimited distance Roadside Assistance and a five-year/unlimited distance corrosion warranty.