Ford says that the standard Mustang GT will put out 486 horsepower and 418 ft.-lb. of torque if you opt for the Active Valve dual exhaust, which you should because V8 engines sound good and we probably won’t get to enjoy them for all that much longer. If you forego that exhaust option, you still get 480 HP and 415 lb-ft of torque. Again: that’s on a Mustang GT. Just a base Mustang with the 5.0-liter Coyote V8 and some nice equipment. Not even getting into the really crazy and expensive stuff Ford is due to put out in time. I remember when a Mustang GT was a glorified boat anchor with some decent highway torque. Now it’s putting out almost-supercar numbers on the lower trims. Even better news is that the new Dark Horse trim throws down 500 HP and 418 ft.-lb. of torque from the same V8, making it “the most powerful non-Shelby edition ever,” according to Ford. Good Lord! And if eight cylinders isn’t your thing—to each their own, right?—the always-competent Mustang EcoBoost is also putting up some really impressive numbers these days. That 2.3-liter turbo four offers 315 HP and 350 ft.-lb. of torque, the mist powerful standard-trim Mustang ever made.
Even if you aren’t a fan of the looks (I actually like it, but I understand why other folks don’t) you have to admit this is a wildly impressive spec sheet for a performance car that’s still reasonably affordable. Pricing hasn’t been announced yet on these new Mustangs; the 2023 ‘Stang starts at around $30,000 for the turbo-four and goes up to about $40,000 for the GT model. With any luck, the 2024 Mustang—a heavy revision of the current car’s platform, engine and technology, as opposed to an entirely all-new model—won’t get its price tag jacked up that much. (Ford can let its more unscrupulous dealers do that.) Above all, there’s really something to be said here about the democratization and optimization of internal combustion power. This is a simple Mustang, not some high-end exotic, offering some very serious numbers. Our own David Tracy made this graph (he’s an engineer, so he does shit like that; the other day he asked me to make a “decision matrix” and I had to Google what that was) and it perfectly illustrates how much Mustang power has skyrocketed even just fairly recently:
As you can see from this graph, Ford really got serious when the Coyote V8 dropped in 2011 and it’s only gone up from there. Based on current trends, some back-of-napkin math and what I call “general vibes,” I am confident in predicting the Mustang GT will put out more than 1,000 HP by the end of this century. I pray we all live to see that day. [Editor’s Note: If I make a linear trendline using the data above — which doesn’t make a ton of sense, but screw it — I end up with 1,360 horsepower projected by the year 2100. -DT].
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Pricing though… I know you get a lot for the money, but I can’t see the new one starting under 40k. Is it a lot for the money? Sure. But wow, what happened to these being affordable? I am in ford’s ‘prime’ demographic for one of these- my first car was a mustang, I have no current payment, love the new ones, have a decent job- and I can’t afford one without going car broke. Especially since I live in a part of the country where this wouldn’t do well 4 months of the year. Hard to swallow 500+/mo for it. I guess I am now a 31 year old old man yelling at clouds. They’re also ridiculously compromised as daily drivers. The doors are massive (like, you can’t open them fully in a parking lot massive) and heavy, the trunks are comically small, the back seats are useless for adults, and visibility is lackluster. They’re god awful as dailies unless you live out in the country and are only driving yourself or one other person around. Doesn’t mean I don’t have a soft spot for em because I do, and if I had the funds for a pure weekend car a GT350 would be at the top of my list. But as your only car? They’re hard to make work and the initial price tag is only the tip of the iceberg. The power has gotten higher every generation (and really so in the past 10 years), but the safety gear and (key here) new automated oversight of all that power has made huge jumps as well. I wonder if cost to insure kept going up until maybe a decade ago and then plateaued? Surely we have from someone from the industry here who can give us at least a sense/order of magnitude? And I have absolutely no idea how anyone can insure a Mustang. Understand that my insurance? Damn good. I have discounts out the ass, including driver education and performance driver education. I had them quote out two candidates for me. One was a 2017 Mustang EcoBoost Performance Package, the other was a 2018 GT with the Performance Package. The EcoBoost came in at $1300 per 6 months. The GT came in at $1400. I pay less than a third of that for an ultra-rare, 410HP, true supercar Porsche 911 where a damaged wheel costs $2500+. I live in DC, which is one of the more expensive places to insure a car in the country, and my driving record is pretty good but not amazing. I pay about $600 every 6 months. For 286 horsepower it’s pretty damn good. I pay approx. the same for my Viper now. -I get multi-car discounts with State Farm. -Hagerty has no provision for winter storage, they charge you a flat fee for 12 months. From November to March my fun cars are under a storage-only policy at a fraction of the cost. The $700/6 months figure doesn’t account for this either, on an annual basis I probably pay ~$1100 to insure the Viper. You should be lamenting the loss of Gt350’s 526 hp, GT500’s since 2007, but the later 662 HP and up versions as well as I do lament the GT350’s engine no longer being with us as well, any NA V8 biting the dust is a tragedy to me. I’m only noting how the regular GT has caught up to a GT500 power wise in barely over a decade. Not debating the merits of either. It’s definitely an attainable dream of mine. I just wish they made a damn convertible version. I want to hear that V8 in all its glory. It’s not empty space down there, it’s context. I’d reject your graph in a technical report. If it’s graphical drama you want then start your graph at 300/2005 and use red. I’m not sure I could justify the big doors and the high insurance, and I’d be interested in the Ecoboost. Seems to me I’d rather a BRZ/GR86 instead, since I’m a fan of smaller and lighter. https://www.slashgear.com/1008588/the-2024-ford-mustang-dashboard-is-a-shock/ And this is the ‘deluxe’ GT interior. This is the even more horrendous base interior: https://www.carscoops.com/2022/09/fords-base-mustang-will-use-two-seperate-tablet-style-displays-instead-of-a-single-panel/ Ford might call it an ‘exciting new immersive digital cockpit experience’. But it’s still just a hot mess, and an appalling cost-cutting excuse for an instrument panel to just hot-glue a couple of iPads to the dash. I’d feel like a sucker every time I looked at it, and realized I actually paid money for the car. I’ll just keep my 2015 Mustang GT. These aren’t muscle cars anymore…they’re very serious performance machines that normal people can afford. I’ve driven both platforms and was very impressed at how engaging and communicative each was, and I only felt like the SS Camaro that I rented was getting away from one single time in a full 8 days of driving it like a monkey. The unsophisticated brute reputation these cars carry is dated as hell. And something else I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention is the fact that the lower trim engines aren’t a joke anymore either. If it was my money I’d obviously go V8 or go home, but the current Ecoboost Mustang is surprisingly nice to drive. 300+ horsepower and RWD is 300+ horsepower and RWD…and the Camaro’s V6 option is inexcusably slept on. At the end of the day I’m happy this exists. I’m not really a muscle/pony car guy personally for a lot of reasons, but I still think this needs to be respected as the serious performance car that it is, and I think enthusiasts would be foolish to shun it as an option because of the stereotypes surrounding these cars. This ain’t your dad’s Mustang. Some people might assume you’re super macho bro or whatever but who cares? V8 go brrrrrrr I’m mostly a Ford guy, I love my S197, but every new generation of Mustang makes me realize how much better the previous one was. The S197 was peak design to me unless you go back to the late 60s. This one looks like the designers knew the Camaro was getting canned and tweaked it to hit a weird stylistic middle ground in the hopes of luring a few non Chevy diehards over to the Ford lot. Spectator areas at cars and coffee are going to need permanently anchored Jersey barriers
