The Mustang Dark Horse currently sits at the top of the model's lineup as the most potent Ford pony car you can get. And with a little bit of help at the start, it can even beat a new Chevy Corvette Z06 in a drag race.
From a power standpoint, the Dark Horse is at a significant disadvantage against the Z06. The Chevy’s naturally aspirated, 5.5-liter flat-plane-crank V8 engine cranks out 670 horsepower and 460 pound-feet of torque. The Mustang, with its 5.0-liter V8, makes "just" 500 hp and 418 lb-ft.
Gallery: 2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse First Drive Review
In a straight-up drag put on by StangMode on YouTube, the Mustang wins from a dig, but only because the race was set up to allow the Mustang to launch first. The Dark Horse uses the opportunity to its full advantage, whereas the Z06 took too long to get going. But the Chevy got revenge in the rolling race, leaving the Dark Horse in the dust.
StangMode also put the Dark Horse up against its cousin, the Ford F-150 Raptor R, to see how the two vehicles would stack up in a drag race. The Raptor R packs the supercharged 5.2-liter V8 borrowed from the old Shelby GT500. It rips with 700 hp and 645 lb-ft of twist.
The Raptor's four-wheel drive kept it competitive against the rear-wheel-drive Mustang at the start of the drag race from the dig, staying even to about 100 miles per hour, but the pony car took the lead just before the finish line. The Raptor R took the hit in the rolling race, getting a nice jump on the Mustang, but the smaller, lighter coupe blew past it for its second victory. Ford lists the Dark Horse's weight at 3,949 pounds, while the pickup's V8 has 5,950 lbs to move around.
