2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse Runs With a Familiar Formula
The 2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse turns up the heat on the redesigned seventh-generation Mustang as a high-performance, street-and-track-focused version of the Mustang GT. It’s powered by a projected 500-horsepower, 5.0-liter V-8 that hits the half-millennium mark with no help from a supercharger or turbochargers. Similar GT-Plus packages in previous Mustangs, like the Mach 1, aimed to make the Mustang GT the ultimate weekend track toy, a dual-purpose street and track car, and Ford says the Dark Horse with the available Handling Package is the most-capable 5.0-liter (meaning, GT-based, not a Shelby) Mustang ever.
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The Dark Horse has an enhanced suspension with standard MagneRide adaptive shock absorbers, unique aero tuning and internal engine components borrowed from the Mustang Shelby GT500. There’s also an available Handling Package for an extra layer of capability with wider wheels, wider Pirelli Trofeo track-use tires, stiffer springs and stiffer anti-roll bars. A similarly constructed package has been offered since the 2018 Mustang GT’s Performance Package Level 2 and refined over the years, with a similar approach to the 2021 Mach 1’s Handling Package.
And we’re fans. A 2018 Mustang GT with Performance Pack Level 2 easily outpaced a 2018 BMW M4 in the hands of a professional track driving instructor in our comparison test when we were first introduced to this GT-Plus formula. For 2024, the Dark Horse comes with a Tremec six-speed manual transmission, also used on the previous Mach 1, which itself was borrowed from the discontinued Shelby GT350, while a 10-speed automatic transmission is available. Lightweight carbon-fiber wheels also offered on the Shelby GT350 and GT500 are available on the Dark Horse, a first for a non-Shelby Mustang.
All of these goodies appear on the redesigned 2024 Mustang with its new styling and redesigned interior sporting large touchscreens and flashy graphics. The Performance Package Level 2 debuted in 2018 as a budget-friendly weekend track car for around $45,000, but the price increased in 2021 to around $58,000 to get similar capabilities from the Mach 1 with the Handling Package. Will that trajectory continue for the 2024 Mustang Dark Horse? We’d like to see the Dark Horse buck that trend, but there’s no pricing available at its debut at the 2022 North American International Auto Show. We should know more closer to when the 2024 Mustang goes on sale in summer of 2023.
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