Ford Mustang Drag Race: Dark Horse Vs. S650 GT Vs. Shelby GT350R

Hennessey Performance Engineering's Ford Mustang Dark Horse H850 tune is under development, but it's estimated to deliver 850 horsepower. Before that happens, the Texas-based tuner needs some benchmark times and brought a (non-tuned) Dark Horse, a 2024 Mustang GT, and a 2020 Mustang Shelby GT350R together to collect straight-line racing data.

A standard Mustang Dark Horse makes factory-rated 500 horsepower and 418 lb-ft of torque from a 5.0-liter naturally-aspirated Coyote V8. When strapped on a dyno, Hennessey got 428 wheel-horsepower at 6,800 rpm and 379 lb-ft at 5,000 rpm at the crank.

This may seem a bit shocking, but it's an acceptable amount of drivetrain loss.

While the Mustang Dark Horse outpowers the S650 Mustang GT's 480 hp, the Mustang Shelby GT350R is still the clear leader when it comes to the number of ponies under the hood. Its 5.2-liter flat-plane naturally aspirate Voodoo V8 produces 526 hp and 429 lb-ft of torque. Moreover, the Shelby is lighter than the Mustang Dark Horse by approximately 140 pounds.

With more power and a lighter body, the Mustang Shelby GT350R - equipped with a Tremec six-speed manual gearbox - unsurprisingly got away from the Mustang Dark Horse easily in a rolling race.

The standard GT got the better of the Dark Horse in the first rolling race, but the latter was declared the overall winner by taking the next one and another dig race. Hennessey definitely got the numbers it needed but chose not to share them.

With a target of 850 hp, the in-house development supercharged Mustang Dark Horse, dubbed H850, should be able to easily leave the standard car, the Mustang GT and Shelby GT350R behind. Hopefully, Hennessey will be looking for a more fair fight, and we expect nothing less than the all-new Mustang GTD going up against the H850.

Hennessey is expected to commence the production of the H850 later this year. The supercharged Mustang Dark Horse will come with a three-year/36,000-mile limited warranty. Pricing for the highly-anticipated upgrade is not available yet.