Remember last year, when the new GTD Mustang scooped a sub-7 full lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife? Well, as we said at the time, the story’s not over yet.
10% DISCOUNT: "BTGBLOG"
The full Multimatic team have been back in the Eifel with their Köln-plated test car almost since Nürburgring industrie-pool began again this season. Germany and the Eifel have experienced the driest March since records began, so even though tarmac temps have been mediocre, there’s been plenty of quality test time on the newly-improved Nordschleife.
International (and very local) spy photographer Stefan Baldauf has been trackside in the last few weeks, capturing the 800hp+ Mustang emerging from its borrowed ramp at the Jaguar Land Rover Nürburgring test centre. You can listen to the supercharged 5.2ltr V8 on his video above, and also on YouTube. Definitely worth putting on the headphones for, in my opinion.
The big black ‘Stang hasn’t just been turning laps in i-pool though, it’s also taken part in private timed sessions too. That’s significant, even if Ford hasn’t released any numbers, word on the street is that the team have already beaten last year’s time. And clearly, I would extrapolate, that they remain confident about setting an outright lap record of some description*.
I know the big Mustang has divided a lot of Nürburgring fans. Some people see it as a GT3-derived steam-hammer which still can’t beat a 4.0ltr Porsche, others as an irrelevant oddity that bears little in common with the millions of other Mustangs attending cars & coffee**.
Personally, I dig American pony cars, and efforts like this and the old Camaro Z28 and ZL1 laptimes, have a tendency to lift the bar for the whole genre. So it’s two thumbs up from BTG, and I wish the team the best of luck, as we wait for more amazing onboard footage.
*Fastest lap time for an american coupe built by Ford, probably
** attending = oversteering into pedestrians
Photo gallery from last year’s official sub-7 lap:
