The Ford Mustang GTD Just Set A New Nürburgring Record For American Cars
It left itself in the dust. The Ford Mustang GTD has reset its Nürburgring Nordshleife lap record by a substantial margin.
Dirk Müller drove the 815 hp car to a 6:57.685 lap of the 12.9-mile track last August under less than ideal conditions to become the first car from an American brand to break the seven-minute mark, but development of the vehicle continued and the Ford Performance team returned on April 9 to give it another shot.
Mustang GTD chief program engineer Gregg Goodall said several significant changes were made including increased torsional rigidity, updated suspension hardware and Active Spook Valve dampers, refined aerodynamics that increased downforce and revised anti-lock braking and traction control systems.
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The result was a 6:52.072 lap that chopped more than 5.5 seconds off the original time. Ford estimates that would represent an 800-foot margin of victory against the old car.
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That allowed the Mustang GTD to leapfrog a Porsche 911 GT3 and Porsche 911 GT3 Manthey Performance Kit into fifth on the all-time production car list behind a Porsche 911 GT3 RS, Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series, Porsche 991 GT2 RS Manthey Performance Kit and $2.7 million Mercedes-AMG One, the last of which used its F1-derived powertrain to a 6:29.090 lap.
Deliveries of the $325,000 Mustang GTD, which is assembled by Multimatic in Canada, are set to begin this spring and Ford hasn’t announced any plans to return to the Nürburgring once again. However, its last supercar, the Ford GT, saw its performance improved across several variations during its six-year production run, so you never know.
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We also don’t know when we’ll be getting a Nürburgring time for the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, which is set to be the Mustang GTD’s top rival from an American automaker. The mid-engine 1,064 hp model is lighter and faster than the Mustang GTD, but that doesn’t always add up to the quickest lap time. The car has been spotted being tested at the track, but there’s been no indication that an official time is in the books … yet.