At long last, the seventh generation (S650) of the iconic Ford Mustang has reached dealerships and is now in the driveway or garage of eager customers and long-time fans.
Plus, as someone you'll meet in the video embedded below said very well – it's the lone survivor of the traditional pony and muscle car age, so it must be doing something right. Ford, as far as we can tell, is trying to make the Mustang less of a pony/muscle car and more of a veritable sports and even supercar.
As such, the latest Mustang has as many track-exclusive versions (Dark Horse R, Mustang GT3, and GT4) as street-legal options (EcoBoost, GT, Dark Horse) plus a planned first-ever Mustang GTD supercar that's rocking 800+ horsepower and is less an heir to the Shelby GTs and more a spiritual successor of the mid-engine Ford GT. But, of course, the bread and butter of the series remains the 5.0-liter Coyote V8-equipped Mustang GT.
Interestingly, some people decided they didn't want to miss on either side of the S650 party – the Mustang GT and the new Dark Horse. For example, the Youtuber behind the StangMode account, who is a long-time fan of Blue Ovals, decided he absolutely needed to have both a stunning blue Mustang GT and a more inconspicuous dark gray Dark Horse in his stable. Naturally, now he alternates between videos dedicated to one or the other (and sometimes to both).
In the latest release, one of his friends – who years ago helped him cover one of his Mustangs in PPF – brought to a little airport his wife's purple 2024 BMW M240i coupe, an AWD treasure that's very much like an M2 sans the additional boost from the 3.0-liter twin-turbo inline-six engine. Anyway, the two sports cars – the blue Mustang GT and the purple 2 Series Coupe – have about 100 horsepower in between them.
Officially, the M240i is rated at 382 hp and 500 Nm (369 lb-ft) while the Mustang GT offers 480 horsepower (even 486 with the optional exhaust), so some people might think they 'brought a knife to a gunfight.' However, everyone knows that BMW loves to severely underrate their models' power levels, and the M240i certainly doesn't stand out otherwise. Plus, it's AWD against RWD, so that will factor heavily into the head-to-head drag races part of the comparison – especially since they are playing on an unprepped surface.
The guys were keen to discuss both of their cars during the intro, so if you want to jump right into the action, we suggest skipping to the 8:45 mark to check out who won the traditional exhaust note battle. Spoiler alert: it's the Mustang with that new MBRP exhaust, without a doubt. After that, they embark on the classic street-like 'one, two, three, go' racing action with a trio of digs alternated by roll races on the way back.
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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