Video: 2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse Quick Spin: A Surprisingly Streetable Track-Ready Mustang

It's the 2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse, which is a new top performance trim level in the 2024 Mustang line. It represents a more extreme track-focus version of the GT, and while its performance is impressive, as you'd expect, what was surprising was how livable it is in everyday driving. Though, there are some trade-offs that you get with its more extreme performance. (upbeat music) So there are a number of things that separate the Dark Horse from a GT. Beyond the expected performance changes, there's also different exterior and interior styling cue. So I want to cover some of those here and then we'll take the car on the road to see how it all translates when you're driving. From a styling standpoint, up front, it gets a different gloss black grill treatment. Around back there are four and a half inch diameter quad exhaust tips, and from a badging standpoint, it has unique Dark Horse badges that are notable for this being the first time there's been a forward-facing horse design. In the past, Mustang badging has always been in profile, like what's still on the grill of the Dark Horse. And this model has an available racing stripe package, but it's not like the vinyl stickers you may have seen on some vehicles. This is integrated with the paint and it's pretty expensive. It's nearly $5,500 for this option. The Dark Horse gets the latest version of Ford's five-liter V-8 engine that's also found in the GT. It has dual air boxes, but it's been tuned here to make 500 horsepower instead of 480 horsepower in the GT. And there are also additional cooling measures to help keep everything at the right temperature when driving on the track, and those include an engine oil cooler, a transmission oil cooler, and a rear axle cooler. If you choose the six-speed manual, you get a different six-speed in the Dark Horse versus the GT. It's a Tremec unit here and has different gearing. So instead of one-to-one coming in fourth gear, there's shorter gearing here, and you have one-to-one in fifth gear. In terms of suspension changes, the Dark Horse gets heavy-duty front shocks, larger rear sway bars, and also comes with Brembo brakes and if you are looking to improve the performance capability even more, you can choose the available handling package. It's around $5,000. This car has it. It includes rear wing, stiffer springs, larger front sway bar, and really aggressive wheels and tires. These are 19-inch wheels wrapped in Pirelli Trofeo tires. They're 10 and a half inches wide in front and 11 inches wide in the rear. The interior of the Dark Horse also gets some different treatments, but it's less extreme than what we were talking about on the performance front. There's a thicker, flat-bottom steering wheel with like, suede inserts and blue accents, more blue accents on the dashboard. And the console, you get this different blue shift knob with the manual transmission and also a serialized plate with Dark Horse in front of the passenger. But you know, this was really an opportunity for Ford to make this special model more special on the inside, and they really didn't do that. There's still kind of that carbon fiber-look plastic on the dash and the door that, it doesn't really look great in a model that's this capable. Looks a little cheap to me. So they could have gone further I think, with the changes in the interior. So one thing about the Dark Horse now that we're in it, driving it, is that it's one of those cars where it's always like urging you to drive faster. Like, even when you're on the highway cruising along at 70, it doesn't feel like you're going that fast. It's always wanting more. (motor revving) What's kind of interesting about it is that it doesn't beat you up on the road, even though it's a performance car with performance suspension tuning. With the MagneRide adaptive dampers, it's very livable. When you get on really rough pavement, yeah, then it doesn't do as well, but it rides a lot better than some mainstream vehicles in it's normal suspension setting. And you really always have power-on-demand with the big, five-liter V-8. You might be able to hear it now. This is the normal exhaust setting. It has an active exhaust so you can tailor it. There's even two more aggressive settings beyond it, a track-only setting at the top end, but there's also a quiet setting when you want a little bit more peace and quiet or you want it to start up quiet and not disturb your neighbors, which is nice there. As mentioned before, this has the different six-speed manual, the Tremec unit, and I like the shift feel of it. It's a bit different than what you get in the GT. The throws are just as short, which is nice, but it moves from gear to gear smoother. It's got a more refined feel, a little bit less notchy than you get with the GT's manual. With these really wide front and rear tires, there are some trade-offs you get, when you're on the, just kind of cruising along on the interstate for one. You get a little bit of tramlining, where it's kind of following grooves that you come across in the road. So pulling a little, tugging a little bit at the steering wheel. It's not too bad though, overall. On city streets if you hit a utility cover or something like that, there's a bit of a wiggle from side to side as you're traveling over that. And also with these really sticky tires, you're always hearing pebbles and things getting tossed up into the fender when you're on slower moving roads. And those are small trade offs for the really impressive handling capability you get with the handling package. You get really great steering turn in, it feels nimble and agile, and when you're cornering it just feels really glued to the road. Not much body motion at all. And that wide-track suspension really gives it a planted, hunker-down feel. So this model also has the optional Recaro seats that are also available in the GT. And I like the way they feel quite a bit. They're pretty snug and comfortable, Have good bolstering to keep you in place. Everyday driving, they're probably more than you're gonna need because I notice that when you're navigating like, a winding road, my arms are always kind of bumping into those bolsters as I'm working the steering wheel. So bit of a downside that they get in the way like that, just for casual driving. The starting price for the Dark Horse is around $61,000 including destination, and that's significantly more than a GT, around $16,000 more. But for that you get a really purposeful track car and if you pony up for the extras that this model has, it becomes even more so. If you want to read the article on the Dark Horse and all of our Mustang coverage, you can find it on cars.com. 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