Fittingly, on the weekend of the Rolex 24 at Daytona, Ford announced a major incursion in the world of global motorsport that will take the Mustang beyond its customary strongholds in NASCAR and on the drag strip. Ford chose the IMSA endurance season opener to reveal its plans to build a Mustang that will embrace the best in left-right racing, an all-new Mustang GT3 race cars that will not only compete for Ford factory teams, but will also be offered to customer teams. The car’s scheduled rollout will be during the 2024 Rolex 24 at Daytona, led by a two-car factory team running in the IMSA GTD Pro category.
The factory team will be managed by Ford’s longtime racing collaborator Multimatic Motorsports, based in Toronto, one of the world’s leading technical players in circuit racing. The Mustang GT3 race car’s powered will come from a 5.0-liter Coyote-based V-8 jointly developed by Ford Performance and its frequent collaborator, M-Sport of Cumbria in the United Kingdom, which teamed with Ford to build the engines for the Ford Puma Hybrid Rally that swept three of the top five spots in last week’s Monte Carlo Rally, including the overall win. While Ford chose only to release the teaser photo of the Mustang GT3 at Daytona, it did reveal that besides using race-prepped Coyote power, the race car will have a rear-mounted transaxle, use specific short-long-arm front suspension, and have the proper array of aero add-ons that typify entries in GT categories.
Jim Donnelly On Wheels 