The 2024 Ford Mustang Darkhorse Makes 500 HP, GT Has 486

Ford likes to tease out information with its hottest cars. The Blue Oval announced horsepower and torque figures for the pony car on Thursday, which is exactly three months after the 2024 Mustang debuted in Detroit. The headline is 500 hp and 418 lb-ft of torque for the top-of-the-line Darkhorse model, making this the most powerful production-car 5.0-liter Ford’s ever sold.

Let’s step back a bit, though. The 2.3-liter four-cylinder in the base Mustang EcoBoost is all-new and puts out 315 hp and 350 lb-ft of torque. While the torque figure is identical to the outgoing Mustang EcoBoost, horsepower rises by 5. Worth noting, however, that the outgoing EcoBoost High Performance Pack boosted output to 330 hp. Ford has indicated whether this package will make a return for the 2024 Mustang.

The V-8 is still the familiar Coyote that debuted for the 2011 Mustang, now upgraded with dual throttle bodies, a new oil pan, a revised exhaust, and a longer duration for the exhaust valves. Standard, the 5.0-liter V-8 makes 480 hp and 415 lb-ft of torque, but you get an extra 6 hp if you opt for the valved performance exhaust. So equipped, the 2024 Mustang GT just beats the old Mach 1’s 480 hp though it has slightly less torque than the old car’s 420 lb-ft, which shouldn’t be noticeable. And even without the optional exhaust, the new GT vaults ahead of the old GT, which offered 450 hp and 410 lb-ft of torque.

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The Darkhorse adds a stronger new crankshaft, new camshafts, and the forged connecting rods from the Shelby GT500 for its 500 hp and 418 lb-ft. The only naturally aspirated Mustang to offer more power is the Shelby GT350, which used a flat-plane 5.2-liter Coyote-derived V-8 to offer 526 hp and 429 lb-ft of torque.

Surely there are more powerful versions of this new Mustang to come, but 500 hp out of a 5.0-liter sounds pretty good to us.