Ten-Second Slips at Sonoma: What the Testers Found in the 795-HP Mustang Dark Horse SC

On a mid-morning pass at Sonoma Raceway's drag strip, The Drive's Byron Hurd set the revs at 1,600, watched the tree and tripped the lights at 10.947 seconds and 131 mph. It was his third run and his first clean one, and he calls himself a corner guy who rarely spends time at the strip. Motor1's Tim Stevens did better, running a 10.927 on his first pass and a 10.790 at 133 mph on his third, on what he described as a chilly strip. He called it "a world-class number that required very little effort."

They were not alone. Autoblog's Cole Attisha ran 10.992 at 131.75 mph on his second pass, and CarBuzz's Brett T. Evans ran a 10.754 at nearly 140 mph. Those slips, all in Track Pack cars at a Ford event, are the closest thing to independent performance data from the Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC launch, where reviews from The Drive, Motor1, Hagerty, Autoblog and CarBuzz went live on Sept. 29. TORQFOLIO was not there. Here is how their findings stack up.

What it is

Think of it as the GT500 without the Shelby name. The supercharged 5.2-liter V8 makes 795 hp and 660 lb-ft and goes to the rear wheels through a Tremec seven-speed dual-clutch, a carbon-fiber driveshaft and a Torsen rear differential that Motor1 says runs 3.73 gears. Every SC gets MagneRide dampers, big Brembos and a vented hood that Hagerty says Ford developed with help from its NASCAR program. Hagerty's Grace Jarvis reports more than 300 parts differ from the regular Dark Horse.

The $36,500 Track Pack is the serious version. It adds carbon-fiber wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires, 305/30ZR20 front and 315/30ZR20 rear, carbon-ceramic brakes that The Drive measures at 16.5 inches front and 14.6 inches rear, a larger adjustable wing, a rear seat delete and a unique MagneRide tune. Motor1 says the package saves 150 pounds and that the Track Pack aero makes 620 pounds of downforce at speed. Ford also borrowed the Mustang GTD's speed-dependent traction control, with five levels plus off.

Where they agree: it is easy to drive fast

For a car with this much power, the most repeated word in these reviews is approachable. Jarvis rode with Ford vehicle dynamics engineer and SCCA national champion Steve Thompson before driving herself, and wrote that she found the car "astoundingly capable and surprisingly approachable." The traction control level she used, Thompson told her, was "very first-timer friendly." Stevens worked his way down through all five levels on the Sonoma road course and said that even as the car got wilder, it never felt nervous.

The road manners surprised them too. Stevens wrote that the SC covered tight, bumpy Northern California roads with remarkable poise and was genuinely nice to idle through town in Comfort. Hurd, who has never loved how the Mustang uses adaptive dampers, wrote that his memories of tram-lining an S550 Mach 1 vanished on the first bad pavement. Autoblog's Cole Attisha found the standard car's suspension breathes with bad roads rather than beating up its passengers.

Ford's own expectations give the slips some context. Hurd reports Ford thinks a stock Track Pack is at least 0.3 seconds quicker than the last GT500, which hovered around 10.4 to 10.5, and that in the right conditions and hands it should run in the low 10s. Attisha mentioned another driver recorded a 10.7, and Evans said he is sure someone with more drag experience could take time off his 10.754. In other words, the car has more in it than a group of journalists on a borrowed morning could find.

Where they split: the transmission and the cabin

The dual-clutch got mixed marks at low speed. Attisha called it possibly the SC's single most transformative component and said it handles traffic smoothly. Stevens was less sold, saying it is not the most buttery-smooth unit at low speed and part throttle, though he has driven worse. Hurd's headline settles where he lands on the manual question: the perfect Mustang, he argues, does not need a stick.

The interior is the one place every reviewer landed the same punch. Stevens called the design too dark and the materials low-grade, a shame, he wrote, given the $100,000 premium on a Track Pack car. Jarvis flagged plastic shift paddles and fake carbon fiber sitting next to real carbon. Hurd wrote that outside the dash, it is a lightly reskinned S550 cabin, and he would delete the rotary shifter. Attisha mostly took issue with the name, wishing Ford had brought back Cobra R or Boss, though he said he stopped caring once he drove it.

The Corvette question

Hurd raised the obvious cross-shop. At $155,825 as tested, his Track Pack car sits right alongside a well-optioned Corvette Z06, and he suspects the Corvette's weight advantage of about 400 pounds would offset its 125-hp deficit on track. Until the Camaro returns, he wrote, there is no true one-to-one comparison.

TORQFOLIO's read

The testers' read is close to unanimous: this is the best supercharged Mustang Ford has built, it is easier to drive than its numbers suggest, and it can run 10s off the trailer in mortal hands. The standard car is the one for street and occasional strip duty, and the Track Pack is the one for anyone who will actually lap it, which is exactly how Autoblog split its recommendation.

For the muscle and drag crowd, the takeaway is simple. A factory warranty car that rips 10.7s on its first morning at the track is a strong starting point, and the interior complaints are the sort of thing owners forget the first time they hear it on the top end.