In the modern context, you probably wouldn’t describe the Ford Mustang as ‘sanitised’.
Roaring naturally aspirated V8, manual gearbox, rear-wheel drive: as mass-produced cars go, this is about as old-school as it gets.
But the latest versions actually handle and, while certainly not underpowered, they’re not stupidly overpowered either. Which is all good for gathering stars in an Autocar road test, but some people are after something that’s a bit mad; something that might not be objectively better but will blow the cobwebs out. Eight hundred or so horsepower ought to do it.
London-based dealer, importer and modifier Clive Sutton has been fiddling with Mustangs for years and giving them absurd amounts of power, and so it has with the latest Mustang Dark Horse.
The headline mod is the addition of a 3.0-litre Whipple supercharger. If that figure doesn’t mean a great deal to you, consider that the ones on hot Jaguars tended to be less than 2.0 litres.
This is actually an official Ford Performance kit, so it comes with a three-year/36,000-mile warranty.
Clive Sutton also adds a Borla exhaust system, a short shifter for the manual gearbox, a set of lowering springs and wider wheels and tyres. There are a bunch of cosmetic changes as well, including carbonfibre splitters, a big wing and Mustang GTD-inspired front wings.
It’s not a subtle car, this, and while it’s not to my personal taste, it’s quite well done.
Even less subtle is the interior retrim. No Smurfs were harmed in the making of it, I’m assured, and the blue Alcantara does liven up the Mustang’s cabin, which can be quite dark in standard form. The lurid colour will be divisive, but the quality is spot on.