The Internet is hardest on the cars it loves the most. And as one of America’s most beloved automotive icons, the Mustang is no stranger to armchair quarterbacking whenever Ford attempts to expand the envelope on the pony car formula.

From adding an independent rear suspension, to turbocharging the engine, to putting the Mustang logo on an EV (gasp!), major changes to the car’s idiom seem to bring out the boo birds in force. And, much to my surprise, even developing something as insane as this 2025 Ford Mustang GTD – a racecar-shaped supercar for the street – hasn’t been allowed to pass without a few flame-throwing Reddit threads.

After two days of driving the GTD on a handling course, a hot track, and the crazily curved mountain roads, I can confirm that any moaning is overblown. The newest and hottest-ever car to wear the Mustang badge isn’t only a track monster, it’s an immediate inductee to the pantheon of American supercars.

What Is It?

The GTD started from the question, “How do we build a Mustang that can lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes?” To answer, Ford partnered yet again with Multimatic (the same race engineering company that built the Ford GT) to turn a Mustang Dark Horse body-in-white into a creature of uncanny velocity.

Under the hood, you’ll find an 815-horsepower, supercharged version of the company’s 5.2-liter ‘Predator’ V8, mated to a rear-mounted, eight-speed, dual clutch transaxle. Engineers ditched the standard suspension setup, opting for an exotic inboard rear suspension and Multimatic’s Active Spool Valve dampers on all four corners. As you’d expect, the effects of those changes are considerable – and entirely awesome to experience (more on that in a sec).

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Spoiler alert: The GTD that resulted from all of that racy engineering hit its target and then some. In the spring of this year, the car lapped the Ring in an incredible 6 minutes and 52 seconds (after an initial attempt resulted in a 6:57 time).

Second spoiler alert: Hitting that lap target didn’t come cheap, as the Mustang has a sky-high starting price – if you can even buy one, and you can’t, because it’s sold out for the ‘25 model year.

Design: Mustang, But With A Massive Side Of Downforce

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Anyone even remotely familiar with the Mustang will be able to spot the GTD as a variant in a heartbeat. Again, the car starts life as a Dark Horse, and the silhouette is unmistakable. With that said, the car’s design has been inexorably altered in the service of both cooling and downforce.

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Beefed-up fenders have been sculpted to accommodate the massive tires beneath (345-section Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R tires in the rear, and 325s in the front), with gaping vents visible just forward of the doors. There are two big vents in the GTD hood to help alleviate upward pressure on the inside of the engine bay (and also do some cooling work). And the star of the show is the lovely, cantilevered rear wing, which can generate as much as 1,951 pounds of downforce at 180 miles per hour.

I’d say that the resulting shape is undeniably impressive in real life – almost impossibly wide and low – but will probably be polarizing to the general public. Then again, this certainly isn’t a “general public” kind of car.

Interior: The Weak Link – If You Care

Outside of a set of great Recaro seats and the suspension riding in the back where your rear passengers would go, this is a pretty stock-feeling Mustang interior. That’s not a bad thing for daily driving. The seats are comfortable and easily adjusted for a lot of body types. The infotainment system is simple to use and allows for handy wireless phone mirroring. And the stereo is pretty good, even with all the ambient noise from the engine and every pebble pinging off the low undercarriage.

Ford hasn’t made the driver’s area the equal of other cars at this price point, to be sure – that cash gets spent on all the go-fast stuff. But if you’re queueing up to buy a GTD for a lux interior, I’d suggest looking elsewhere.

Powertrain & Driving: Chasing Lap Records Across America

Ford brought us to the Thermal Club racetrack in Thermal, California – near Palm Springs – to drive the Mustang GTD on the road and on a great street circuit. We also got to familiarize ourselves with the car on a large autocross setup at Thermal, which was both instructive and confidence-building.

Mustang GTD On Track

The GTD is impressive on a canyon road, but any car built to lap the Ring is going to be most at home on the track. My first inkling of the car’s ability came on the surprisingly useful cone course. Running the lap first in Normal mode and then in Sport, the first thing one must reckon with, naturally, is the available power.

To start, the supercharged Predator V8 sounds like an absolute menace. The engine note from the free-breathing exhaust is flat, hard, and resonant, rising in pitch to match the super-fast spin-up to the 7,400 RPM redline. Throttle response is extremely sharp, but still easy to modulate thanks to a well-judged pedal and the huge rubber out back.

As soon as you adjust to having 815-hp under your right foot, the steering and suspension response take center stage. In Sport mode, both allow the car to feel sharp, but my first foray into Track mode revealed an entirely different vehicle altogether.

Selecting Track mode drops the car more than 1.6 inches (40mm), by hydraulically compressing one of the two sets of springs in the ASV dampers. This also doubles the spring rates and makes the GTD feel much more like the world’s most powerful go-kart than an amped-up muscle car.

On the autocross, the change allowed me to hit every corner entry faster, and change direction so rapidly that I had to rewire my brain on the fly to adjust. And on the big circuit at Thermal, the GTD proved to be a total revelation.

The available grip from the Sport Cup 2R tires, optimized by way of the trick suspension and huge aero effect, was simply massive. Ford gives the driver control of its Variable Traction Control system with six levels of intervention, which I progressively reduced as I learned the track layout. I was able to make the back end of the GTD come around more than expected exactly once in a day of lapping, and then only after I’d switched traction control completely off and gotten comfortable enough with the circuit layout to get a little too brave. In really high-speed sweeping turns and quick-change chicanes, this Mustang feels utterly glued to the Earth.

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For all that power figures steal the headlines, it’s the braking system that impresses the most on cars at this level of performance. The GTD uses six-piston calipers and gargantuan 16.5-inch vented and drilled carbon-ceramic rotors in the front, and four-piston calipers and 14.6-inch rotors in the back. The brakes bite hard right away, didn’t even hint at fade after loads of track time, and basically allow you to feel like a god when diving deep into the braking zones around Thermal.

At the end of the day, the GTD was so capable and so flattering of the driver that it truly feels like a car that can scale up or down to a huge range of owners. The wings and vents make the car look intimidating – but the reality is, it’s anything but.

Mustang GTD On The Road

Ford very much touts the GTD as a car you can drive every day, with very little compromise. And while that’s mostly true, there are certainly some trade-offs versus something like a Mustang GT or even a higher-performance street car like a Porsche 911 GTS.

On the positive side of the ledger, all the elements that make the GTD such a track hero also translate to a great canyon road experience. The steering is quick and easy to modulate (if lacking in road feel at lower speeds), the brakes are obviously confidence-inspiring, and the ride quality isn’t horrible when the suspension is in one of its higher-riding modes.

Better still, even in Normal mode, when the traffic opened up ahead of me, I didn’t feel the need to play with the settings before stepping on the gas and hitting some twisty bits. The GTD is hugely competent even in its mildest setting, when you’re just looking to have a very quick good time in the hills.

With all of that said, the car is still extremely noisy, firm, and wide – there’s no getting around it. The wide tires pick up every pebble on the road and throw them violently at the undercarriage of the car, and that inspiring exhaust feels slightly anti-social when you’re in the CVS parking lot instead of on the track.

As an occasional fun car to take for a Sunday afternoon, the Mustang GTD will bring owners a lot of happy memories. But only the very hardcore driver would put this fast Ford in heavy daily driving rotation.

Verdict & Pricing: If You Have The Means And The Invitation, Don’t Hesitate

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Interestingly, Ford hasn’t yet committed to final pricing. I wasn’t given an as-tested price for any of the cars I drove in California, and the only statement I was able to get said,

With that said, there have been some leaked window stickers that indicate an all-in starting MSRP of $327,960 (when including destination fees and a gas guzzler tax), and Ford isn’t denying any of them. What’s more, Performance Pack cars could add $10K or more to that bottom line, and special editions like the Carbon Series could take the Mustang well over the $400k-mark. Zoinks.

If you’re trying to comparison shop, it’s useful to note that the GTD’s most direct competitor, the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, starts at an MSRP of around $250,000 (though it can easily climb over $300k with options).

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Despite the price, the Mustang GTD is absolutely worth the asking if you’re someone who, 1) is rich, and 2) has regular access to a track facility. If you are one of the few hand-selected people who have the opportunity to buy a GTD, you’d be foolish not to put in your order.

This isn’t just a special, historically good Mustang; it’s ostensibly the best version of the car that Ford has ever built in the 60-year history of the marque. Hell, I’ve been reviewing cars for 10 years now, and it’s on the shortlist of the best American cars I’ve ever driven, full stop. A Mustang, a racecar, and a true supercar; the GTD is out of this world and without a real peer: The absolute pinnacle of the pony car idea, and a vehicle I won’t soon forget.

More Images of The 2025 Ford Mustang GTD