Who’d have thought that in the second half of the 2020s, some of the most fun new vehicles would come from America? While Europe’s automakers are still finding footing with performance EVs and heavyweight plug-in hybrids, the big three are adopting a more old-school approach. We’re living in the era of the 700-horsepower work truck F-150, 1,000-plus-horsepower Corvettes, manual Cadillac sport sedans, and supercharged half-ton Rams. If that wasn’t enough, Ford’s now gone and chopped the top off the enticingly excessive Mustang Dark Horse SC. How outrageous.
On the chance you’re not familiar with the Dark Horse SC, it’s the most outlandish factory-built new Mustang this side of a GTD. With a supercharged 5.2-liter V8 pumping out 795 horsepower and 660 lb.-ft. of torque, it promises properly rapid thrills. The seven-speed dual-clutch transmission from the old Shelby GT500 is tasked with making that output useable, you can spec goodies like carbon fiber wheels and carbon ceramic brakes, and the whole thing seems aimed at people who want V8 thunder to go hunting 718 GT4s with. Not the most obvious candidate for the al fresco treatment, but that’s the beauty of Mustangs: Like Subway, you can generally have it your way.
Beyond the soft fabric roof, the Mustang Dark Horse SC Convertible looks just as ridiculous as the tin-topped version. A wing the size of a bench, external hood latches, a blacked-out front end, air intakes large enough to be subject to property tax assessment, a power bulge that really bulges. Even the launch color is eggplant emoji-purple. Remember Razor’s Mustang from “Need For Speed: Most Wanted”? This thing looks equally berserk.
However, there’s one reasonable qualm to have: If you’ve ever driven a Mustang convertible, whether as a vacation hire car or the only somewhat reasonably priced performance convertible, you probably know that it’s not the most rigid machine on the market. Big bumps carry through the floor and up the windscreen surround in a way that they don’t on the coupe, which really makes you wonder what burying the skinny pedal in a 795-horsepower version will feel like. Presumably expletive-inducing, whether the rear tires hook up or not. Ford claims it’s beefed up the structure, but without a Nm/deg figure, we’ll just have to wait and see what that means.
Of course, the Dark Horse SC Convertible is still a Mustang convertible in ways other than its bones. Don’t be fooled by the carbon fiber plinth for the dual-clutch automatic’s dial shifter, all of the other plastics in here look like what you’d get in a well-specced normal Mustang. The convertible top controls are the same as on an EcoBoost, which means that you likely get a manual header latch. A bit amusing, considering how if a Mustang convertible costs more than a Mustang coupe, and the 2026 Dark Horse SC coupe starts at $108,085, this 2027 convertible is going to be one pricey pony. Could we have at least got leather on the tops of the dash and door cards for that money? Even a nice smooth-grain vinyl one, just to distinguish the cabin a little more.
At face value, turning a track-focused coupe into a cabriolet doesn’t make a ton of sense. However, that’s only if you’re looking at it the same way. According to Dark Horse SC chief engineer Arie Groeneveld, “…instead of prioritizing the convertible for setting lap times, we’ve engineered it to be the ultimate top-down grand touring machine.” Translation: It’s mostly just here to be all-powerful as all hell, a drop-top designed to leave stretch marks on the freeway.
Its lap times are irrelevant; it’s just here to make you gasp and squeal and cackle. Chopping the top off a Mustang Dark Horse SC just seems like a fun and wild thing to do, and in an age of performance buzzwords and stopwatch obsession, the prospect of a car that’s only here to be a good time is incredibly enticing. You’ve had your greens, now here’s your dessert. Alright, maybe not now. The Mustang Dark Horse SC Convertible won’t arrive until Spring 2027, just in time for a resurgence in top-down weather.
Top graphic image: Ford
Isn’t it Burger King that advertised you can “have it your way?”
20 years ago, I remember when Ford rolled out their first vehicle that broke 6 figures…the GT. They got a lot of flack and people saying they would never pay supercar money for a Ford. They were wrong, the GT is awesome and is worth a ton of money today. Will we see the same thing happen with this in 20 years? Nope.
I like everything about this other than the price. The color, the body, and at my height I can rest my arm on the door sill (I think, the model doesn’t appear that tall). But that price is way over the top without upgraded interior materials.
Purple, you say?
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I’m generally not the type to be excited by too much horsepower, but I understand those that do. I was doing some work for a Ford dealer back in 2016 that was installing Roush superchargers in new Mustangs. The sound of that car makes me want to just turn over my check book.
I think you hit the nail on the head though about why folks will buy this car. Rationalization does not play a part. I have an eco-boost convertible Mustang (see my horsepower comment above). It is not a rational purchase at all. Larger than an SUV, yet no trunk space and only seats two. But the top comes down! And I must say, for a convertible, this one has amazing aerodynamics. I have owned a lot of convertibles over the years, this is the only one that can cruse at 80 with the top down and still listen to the stereo. I get a lot of drag race requests (Dodge Bros seem to have a complex), but I politely decline. Better to stay silent than open… (or something like that)
I too have an Ecoboost convertible. Not a daily, just a weekender for my wife and I to cruise. Manual with the Ford Performance tune, it’s fast enough. Test drove the Five Ohs and loved the sound but felt they were overkill for our use case. I think the S550s are great looking, have aged well and it’s been a great car. It’s a shame that the prices of the new ones are so outrageous (and you have to go V8 to get a stick). I’ll keep mine.
Given the probable target market for something this expensive, I’m concerned that there may also be parallels with a certain former Subway spokesperson.
interesting, I recall looking at the underside of a GT500 at Sema a long time back now. it weighed nearly as much as a Challenger because of all the things they added to allow the power to not tear it apart. A 800HP convertible has to be even more so.
The big 3 are really giving the finger to all those years of pesky planet-saving mileage targets. USA! USA!
Cool and probably my favorite S650 so far (the bar is not high), but staggeringly, laughably overpriced. You’re talking about 911, LC500, or Z06 money for a car that shares much of the same components as the Mustang you get upgraded to at Hertz. I get that Ford under Farley is at the absolute peak of their Greed Is Good game right now, offering laughably overpriced products across the board to appease The Line, but you’d have to be an idiot to drop $110,000+ on a Mustang convertible…
The <$30k to >$100k range worked well for the Charger/Challenger platform, Ford saw how Stellantis printed money and sees the gap in the market. More power to them at this point!
I think the Hell-everything had a level of appeal and cultural relevance that this probably won’t, but we’ll see
I would agree, the Hellcat branding did way better than Dark Horse. To be honest, I usually forget the Dark Horse model exists, nevermind the SC version.
If there is one thing Dodge did well it’s branding!
The Hellcat was released in a very different era, despite not being that long ago. 707 HP felt special back then. Now, every EV has 700+ HP and you can take your pick of ICE cars with it too.
Also, $60000 was substantially more aspirational for most people than $100k. Kind of like the Corvette, a Hellcat felt like an expensive but potentially attainable toy on an upper-middle class budget. Even if you never actually bought one, you felt like you could if you wanted to badly enough and that made it a little extra cool.
This? This is supercar territory. It exists, but I’ll never own one, and I’ll probably never even see one in person. My eyes kind of glaze over after seeing the price (fair or not, given the rampant inflation since the $60k Hellcat days).
Six figures for a Mustang is insanity to my brain. To me Mustangs are $35,000 death traps with a V8 and literally nothing else…
Plus Dodge handed out cash on the hood like candy all the way up the model stack. You can’t afford a $60,000 Hellcat still? Sure you can. Stretch that loan out to 84 months.
There are still many parts of the USA where the rich guy in town wouldn’t dare to drive an import still. They won’t sell a ton but I doubt they are trying to, this is just the halo car at Ford for the moment.
I am shocked they made this before a standard DarkHorse vert.
10/10 for the Most Wanted reference!
Honestly, this thing would look pretty out of place driving anywhere that isn’t next to a coastline or something along those lines…. it also has that look to it as well.
I live next to the ocean, and yesterday I saw a bright red convertible Mustang and thought, “that is a fantastic car for a summer day”.
A six-figure “grand tourer” does not a Mustang make, in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong; they’re great cars. But they have humble bones and do not drive expensively or particularly ergonomically, as one would expect from that class of car. I also think that speed and horsepower have been completely democratized, so the novelty of a 700+ HP car is mostly gone, unless it has something special, like a 12-cylinder engine. You really can’t exploit that level of power in most situations, and trying to do so on the interstate is even less satisfying than you’d think.
In any event, I doubt this does a better job at being a reasonably comfortable long-distance car than a regular Mustang GT Premium with the 10AT.
This is for a very specific buyer, and probably someone who is enough of a Mustang fan to forgive the car its faults as they stroke a check for probably $120K. Or someone who plans to hermetically seal it in a garage with 1,000 miles on it and hope their “investment” outpaces a modest S&P 500 index fund when they auction it off in 2060.
I like the idea, I like the numbers on paper, but it looks so damn big!
All of the height above the wheel arches is completely unwanted. The head of the driver in the photos barely clears the top of the door.
Is this larger or smaller than the Youabian Puma?
This is simply the reality for having a modern convertible due to crash safety requirements. It’s been a long time since it was comfortable to rest your arm on top of the door sill.
It’s reasonably comfortable to do so in my B9.5 S5 Cabrio.
It’s not terrible in my 2016 Boxster either but I’m relatively tall and the seat can be raised up in height quite a bit, which I’m guessing is similar for your S5.
But compared to a… NA or NB Miata? Or any of the 1960’s and 70’s British roadsters? The sort of top-down freedom we envision just doesn’t exist in modern vehicles.
I am curious about the Venn diagram of people shopping 800hp convertibles and the people checking crash ratings.
I feel like there’s a pretty big gap between this design (or even the S550 as G.K. has hit on down below) and a crash test fail. If the DH received a ‘poor’ rating across the board, would it cost them even 1 sale? I doubt it.
The issue with crash ratings is that for them to stay relevant, they have to continually get harder to meet the highest rating. Unfortunately that pursuit tends to lead to unflattering designs and, more importantly, even higher risks for pedestrians and cyclists. The net is likely more total deaths (pedestrian deaths are up 72% since 2009 according to IIHS) because the crash rating system is myopic.
Regardless of people’s willingness to purchase a car that is less safe, there are minimums that have to be met from the FMVSS. These have pushed the belt line in all cars higher over the last three decades. It’s just a lot more noticeable in convertibles.
Yeah, but that’s why I was trying to distinguish between “fail” and “poor”. Maybe they could claw back a few inches at just poor, which (almost) no customer would bat an eye at.
From what I can tell, Ford didn’t change the hard points of the Mustang when moving from the S550 to the S650. Overall dimensional differences are so minute as to be negligible. The S650 is a little more bulbous in profile, which–coupled with that particular shot’s angle–makes the car look larger than it is…but if that’s a problem, it’s been a problem for at least the last twelve years or so.
I agree the issue has been there that long. I rented one of the 4-cyl mustang convertibles 9 years ago, and my first impression was the size and lack of visibility. I felt like I needed to sit on a phone book just to see out, and I’m 6′.
I like it. I’ll never say no to more convertibles.
Headless Horseman = Mustang Dark Horse IC (Ichabod Crane)
Without a roll bar, if you flip it, a headless horseman you indeed will be!
I’m surprised; I guess I haven’t been paying attention, but I thought convertibles with nothing but the windshield to protect you in a rollover were things of the past.
Hell yes, purple, but yeah that’s going to be one floppy mess of a car on non-perfectly paved backroads
Looks ridiculous. Perfect!
While I’ve warmed a little to the design (esp the front end), it still overall looks too much like a Camaro, esp topless.
I, for one, am ready for the “we are using LED headlights so we can make them super narrow” trend to be over.
Some vehicles make it work, but they generally aren’t tied to specific design language. The mustang doesn’t look like it’s squinting in “grrr, I’m aggressive” kind of way, but more like “I don’t understand even though you’ve tried to explain it to me 7 times”
To my eyes at least, if Ford had gone with larger, more squared headlights, it could have reasonably made a “Fox body inspired” case, as the relative boxiness of the front end does have similar lines. Still not a fan of the three bulb on each side look.
The side views just look wrong. It’s all one height from start to finish. It needs some curves, or something to break up that monotony.