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The 760 hp Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 used to be the most powerful Mustang ever, until the Mustang GTD came along with its 815 horsepower. A new potential competitor emerged this week, as Ford unveiled the Mustang Dark Horse SC, powered by a 5.2-liter V-8 and supercharged, just like the Shelby GT500. Ford didn’t give a horsepower number, but it’s probably in the neighborhood of 800 horsepower as well.
The Dark Horse SC—the SC stands for “supercharged,” which is true—is, basically, a Shelby GT500, but for 2026. Ford unveiled the car at the Detroit Auto Show, calling it “the most advanced, powerful, and track-capable Mustang Dark Horse in the stable.” That stable includes the Dark Horse R, a track-only Mustang powered by a 5.0-liter V-8 making 500 horsepower.
The new Dark Horse will certainly have more grunt, but Ford also emphasized the aerodynamic improvements and additional lightness that the automaker added to burnish its track performance and to give owners something more to tell their friends about.
“By utilizing carbon-fiber wheels and those Brembo carbon-ceramics, we stripped 150 pounds of weight from the Track Package,” Arie Groeneveld, the Dark Horse SC’s chief program engineer, wrote in a post describing the car. “We replaced standard steel suspension components with forged links and added a lightweight magnesium strut tower brace to sharpen steering feel and reduce unsprung mass. On the Mustang Dark Horse SC Special Edition, we even brought over 3-D-printed titanium accents from the GTD program, because at this level of performance, every gram matters.”
The aero improvements, meanwhile, including a new hood and changed venting underneath, combine to give the Dark Horse SC a maximum of 620 pounds of downforce at 180 mph. That isn’t quite race car performance, but still an impressive boost to high-speed cornering.
Ford did not announce a price, but it will likely cost more than a base Escape. Customers can begin ordering the car in March, with deliveries to follow sometime this summer. You might even see it doing hot laps at your local track by this fall.
Click here for more photos of the Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC.
Erik Shilling is digital auto editor at Robb Report. Before joining the magazine, he was an editor at Jalopnik, Atlas Obscura, and the New York Post, and a staff writer at several newspapers before…
New Year, New Reds
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