The 2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse truly did live up to its name. The surprise track-tuned variant quickly shot to the head of the field as the most talked about 2024 model in the seventh-generation Mustang lineup. Thanks to a pre-production Dark Horse‘s appearance at the Mustang Stampede, a reveal event offshoot of the Detroit Auto Show, we get a quick glimpse at what’s under the hood and what it sounds like.
Filmed by the YouTube account DtRockstar1, the Dark Horse’s exhaust note sounds like it comes pre-modified with a throaty cars-and-coffee growl. RIP to anyone standing behind the quad exhaust as it fires up, unleashing a gnarly rip before settling into a deep, rumbly idle.
The video also gets a peek under the hood, which looks even meaner and more purposeful than that of the current V8 cars. The twin throttle bodies double the hardware, cramming the bay with twice the air boxes and resonators. There’s something satisfying about the symmetrical intakes feeding into the center of that beastly V8.
The last shot we see is of the Dark Horse accelerating away. Even at less than full throttle, the rip echoes with a serious roar.
Putting out a minimum of 500 horsepower, an estimated 20 more than the GT, the Dark Horse features additional cooling for the engine and six-speed manual transmission. If this is indeed the last hurrah for Ford’s purely internal combustion V8, at least it’s going out with a thrilling soundtrack.
