Manoli Katakis 
Shortly after Ford Performance released a teaser image of the upcoming S650 Mustang Dark Horse GT3 race car, CEO Jim Farley posted a video of the 2024 race car absolutely sending it around Sebring International Raceway in Florida. Images were also published that captured the three days of testing that recently finished this week. Also joining the testing session was its chief rival: the Chevrolet C8 Corvette Z06 GT3.R, as well as the Toyota’s GR010 Hybrid Le Mans Hypercar.
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Mustang GT3 test run at Sebring. Holy cow! pic.twitter.com/LWnA9Eop3Y
— Jim Farley (@jimfarley98) March 21, 2023
An on-site source at Sebring Raceway got a close-up look at the S650 Ford Mustang GT3 race car described it as “so f*cking sick,” and “properly insane,” emphasizing the side pipes and American flag on the roof. Allegedly, the new Mustang race car was only pushing its M-Sport built Coyote V8-based racing engine to no more than 6,500 RPM during testing. Despite the car already sounding ferocious in the public video, there’s likely plenty more where that came from. Drivers reported to be involved in the program include former Ford GT racing driver Joey Hand and Porsche factory driver Harry Tincknell.
The S650 Ford Mustang Dark Horse GT3 program is said to be headquartered at the Mulitmatic Motorsports facility in Mooresville, North Carolina. It will fully debut later this summer, and will take to racing starting the 2024 season in both IMSA here in North America and the WEC which is primarily in Europe. That means it will participate in grueling endurance races such as the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, 6 Hours of Spa, and 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Before finalizing the S650 Ford Mustang Dark Horse GT3 program, Ford was reportedly pursuing a top-class LMDh Hypercar program that would have put it in direct contention with Cadillac, Porsche, Toyota and others. But they went bigger, and chose to announce a partnership with Red Bull in Formula 1 instead.
As mentioned, the new Ford Mustang Dark Horse name will be found in various racing leagues all over the globe. This includes Australia’s Supercars, NASCAR, NHRA drag racing, FIA GT4 class racing, as well as an exclusive Dark Horse spec series. Ford Performance will sell customers turn-key track cars in the form of the Mustang Dark Horse S and Mustang Dark Horse R, as well. Multimatic, no longer building the Ford GT supercar, will construct these machines one-by-one, along with the Ford Bronco DR race truck that well-heeled customers can also buy.
