Ford has just made history with the Mustang GTD, now the fastest North American production vehicle at the Nürburgring. With an impressive time of 6 minutes 57.685 seconds, it beats the Dodge Viper ACR by 4.3 seconds.
It’s only the sixth production car to complete the legendary 20.8 km (12.9 miles) course in under 7 minutes.
A discreet but significant victory
The record lap was achieved on August 7, 2024, but Ford only recently revealed the news. Multimatic Motorsports driver Dirk Müller was at the controls, concluding two years of intensive development, testing and simulations.
Ford promises a full video of the tour soon, but for now, a short documentary reveals the challenges of a sub-7-minute lap. It shows the Mustang GTD reaching an impressive 301 km/h (187 mph) on the circuit's long straight.
Rivaling the great legends
The Mustang GTD surpassed such prestigious models as the Lamborghini Aventador SuperVeloce and Ferrari 296 GTB, and even equals the Porsche 918 Spyder. However, it remains behind the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series, which holds the record for front-engined cars with a time of 6 minutes 43.61 seconds, and far behind the Mercedes-AMG One, which set the absolute record for production cars with a lap of 6 minutes 29.09 seconds in 2020.
A promising future for the Mustang GTD
Despite this achievement, Ford has no intention of stopping there. CEO Jim Farley has promised that the GTD will return to the Nürburgring in 2025 to try and improve its time even further.
“The team behind the Mustang GTD has drawn on decades of track experience to design a car capable of competing with the world's best supercars. We're proud to be the first American manufacturer to break 7 minutes at the Nürburgring, but we're not satisfied. We know the GTD still has potential.”
- Jim Farley, Ford CEO
