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Payne: Riding the Mustang Dark Horse through Manhattan
Posted by Talbot Payne on April 16, 2023
New York — In the opening scene of the classic 1976 car movie, “Gumball Rally,” a fleet of muscle cars explodes from a midtown Manhattan garage and storms up Gotham’s wide avenues as the sun rises, their high-horsepower engines echoing off the steel canyons. Each beast carries two passengers — a driver and a navigator — as they begin their cross-country race to California.
Riding shotgun in the menacing new, 2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse, I had similar visions.
Pulling out of Pier 78 next to Javits Center (which is hosting the New York International Auto Show this week) on New York’s west side, Mustang Vehicle Dynamics engineer and ace driver Adam Brecher selected SPORT mode. The V-8 gurgled menacingly. Brecher stabbed the gas peal. VROOOM!
And then we stopped, stuck in 2:30 p.m. city traffic.
It’s tough to race through Manhattan without a movie permit. But that didn’t diminish my first ride in Dark Horse, the first new Mustang performance bloodline since the Bullitt badge debuted in 2001. Dark Horse is due in dealerships this summer alongside familiar, base Ecoboost and GT models. Like the Bullitt — and the outgoing Mach 1 — the Dark Horse is a track-focused version of the V8-powered GT. Mustang’s forthcoming GT3 race car shares its name.
Dark Horse boasts 500 horsepower — 20 more than the GT — and the most of any normally-aspirated, non-Shelby, 5.0-liter V8 Mustang ever, says Ford. But that’s not the reason we were getting repeated stares from passersby as we rolled (slowly) through mid-day traffic.
The ferocious Dark Horse looks like a possessed pony that burst through the gates of Hell. Long snout. Masked face. Swollen nostrils feeding air to the huge, twin throttle-body lungs under the blackened hood. Muscled haunches engorged with 11-inch, rear Pirelli hoofs pawing at the pavement. Tail punctuated by a black wing with Dark Horse logo stamped on the trunk below. We looked fast standing still.
My pilot acknowledged the stares with a wave, shoved the manual shifter into gear and cruised with traffic, occasionally executing a downshift with electronic rev match. BRAP! But even at a crawl there was plenty to keep us occupied inside the cabin. This is a Mustang interior unlike any before.
The Dark Horse features new, hoodless, 12.4-inch and 13.2-inch digital twin displays that stretch across the dash. It’s a modern take on a sportscar cockpit just as the Corvette C8 brought Chevy’s muscle car into the 21st century.
Run by Epic Games’ Unreal Engine software, the graphics pop — and the touchscreen responded quickly to inputs as Brecher ran though, say, various exhaust mode options: Stealth, Sport, Screaming Like a Pony Outta’ Hell (actually that last one is called Track).
With fine grain plastics and a crisp, console switch deck for features like traction control, Stop-Start, and emergency flashers, the tidy cabin complements the sophisticated screens. That’s a good thing as the Dark Horse’s starting price is a premium $59,565.
For all its refinement, though, this is a car that tempts hooliganism.
In addition to the manual shifter capped by a blue Titanium ball, drivers have an old school handbrake at their disposal — complete with drift mode. Drifting ain’t easy, so drift mode makes it easier to misbehave like pro drift champ Vaughn Gittin Jr. who helped develop the feature. For a teaser of Dark Horse’s capabilities, check out the production Mustang drifting next to Gittin’s race at Virginia International Raceway online.
We could only dream of drifting as we exited the Hudson Parkway and circled back towards Javits on 11th Avenue. At another stoplight, Brecher pointed out how drivers can chose their digital cockpit — his preference being a throwback tachometer from the 1979-1993 Fox Mustang. His favorite part? It glows green at night (or in New York tunnels).
I’ve had some uncomfortable rides in Mustang seats, but Dark Horse’s blue-leather-with-suede-inserts Recaros fit like a glove. Scanning the cabin, the rear seats looked typically tight but visibility was excellent — an ergonomic feature that helped give ‘Stang a leg up over the pillbox-visibility of the outgoing Camaro.
At an 11th Avenue stoplight, the road cleared ahead, and Dark Horse pawed at the ground. BRAPPA BRAPPA. Brecher popped the clutch and the pony galloped forward, the 5.0-liter V8 free for the first time in our drive. There is lot more where that came from.
We rolled back into the gated confines of the Classic Car Club that occupies Pier 78. Who knows — maybe Hollywood could use the Club’s garage to film a remake of the Gumball Rally someday. It would be fun to clear the Hudson Parkway of traffic . . . and unleash all of Dark Horse’s 500 ponies.
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.