► Ford Mustang GT3 to race next year
► Based on the Dark Horse
► Assembled by Multimac and M-Sport
At this year’s Le Mans Ford unveiled a new Mustang GT3 car that’ll take part in the 2024 race. Aimed at conquering the popular GT3 class, the new race-ready Mustang is a joint-collaboration between the Blue Oval and long-time partners Multimac and M-Sport. Most importantly for Ford, it’s one of the ways the Blue Oval will redefine the Mustang as thoroughbred racer rather than ‘just’ a muscle car.
First, the car
The new race car is based on the Mustang Dark Horse, the most extreme road-going version of Ford’s pony car. Like the Dark Horse, the Mustang GT3 car gets its power from the 5.4-litre Coyote V8, albeit specially assembled by M-Sport of rally fame. The rest will be built by Multimac of Ford GT GTE car fame.
‘We start with the production Mustang body-in-white and Coyote production engine, but we increase the capacity from 5- to 5.4 litres,’ says Mark Rushbrook, global director of Ford Performance Motorsports told CAR. ‘The production block and heads but many other changes, including a dry sump. The engine is positioned as low and as far back in the car as possible.’
The body
The Mustang GT3 starts with the body of the Dark Horse, but adds a range of aerodynamic features to crank up the downforce. ‘The body has been shaped by a combination of Ford’s computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software and Multimatic’s lead aerodynamicist and Ford’s design studio,’ says Rushbrook. ‘The lead designer races cars, so he gets it.’
Take a look at the pictures above, and you’ll see a diffuser, front splitter and side exit exhausts; this may have started out as a Dark Horse, but it’s a very different beast now.
‘We have built two cars, which are testing in parallel in Europe and the USA, and some running in Canada [where Multimatic is based] too,’ adds Rushbrook
Where does this fit in?
The Mustang GT3 will sit at the top of the Dark Horse line up, but there’s also several other silouhettes in the pipeline – most notably a GT4, Dark Horse R and Dark Horse S. The R will form a one-make race series – much in the mould of the Porsche Carrera cup:
‘[It’ll be] a customer race car based on the production car with a roll cage, fuel cell – everything you need to go racing,’ says Rushbrook. ‘There will also be a Dark Horse S – similar but less geared to racing, more for customers who want to focus on trackdays.’
Building an icon
Far from a dinosaur, the Mustang is now at the forefront of Ford’s strategy. At the 2023 New York motor show chief engineer of the new Mustang Laurie Transou, explained just how important the Mustang is for Ford, and it’s a message echoed by Ford’s Performance chief:
‘As a company, we’re focusing on icons: Mustang, Bronco, F150,’ explains Rushbrook. ‘We’ve made a commitment to keep selling the internal combustion engines mustang globally for the foreseeable. The Mustang is one of our car cornerstones.’
By creating a car that races in a global series, and soon with its own one-make series, Ford is keeping the Mustang associated with precision driving. Throw in the Formula One program with Red Bull, and just like the DFV days, Ford will once again be synonymous with global motorsport.
‘The GT convergence is great – we can race at the Nurburgring, in SRO, WEC, IMSA,’ adds Rushbrook. ‘It matches with the Mustang having become a global market car with the sixth generation. We can now do that with the racing equivalent.’