Latest news with #SuperMustangMachE
Auto Blog
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Auto Blog
Ford's Super Mustang Mach-E Looks Unstoppable at Pikes Peak
Ford has revealed its contender for the 2025 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and it's looking like a winner. Ford Performance Strikes Back at Pikes Peak Ford Performance is going back to Colorado for this year's Pikes Peak International Hill Climb – the Blue Oval's Nth try since the Model T's maiden run in 1916. With the Ford Mustang GTD setting lap records on the other side of the pond, the Mustang appears to be the ideal candidate to conquer the mountain's 12.42-mile, 156-turn route. But it won't be the ICE-powered Mustang that will challenge records this weekend. Meet the Super Mustang Mach-E – a sharper, lighter, and arguably more dangerous version of the otherwise mundane electric crossover, purpose-built to set records at Pikes Peak. After two years of headline-making electric builds – from the wild E-Transit SuperVan to last year's title-winning F-150 Lightning SuperTruck – Ford's latest creation feels like a surgical strike. Engineered To Conquer The Treacherous Colorado Mountain The Super Mustang Mach-E has all the ingredients to secure a win at Pikes Peak. It weighs around 250 pounds less than the SuperTruck, tipping the scales in favor of agility and balance. On a climb where weight and precision can make or break a run, that's a huge advantage. But there's more than weight savings at play here. Powering this monster is a trio of UHP 6-phase electric motors that deliver more than 1,400 horsepower, curiously tuned down a bit compared to its road-course version. Matching this huge grunt is 6,900 pounds of downforce generated at 150 mph, resulting in a car that sticks to the tarmac, unlike few others at this event. The Super Mustang Mach-E also employs 710 kW of regenerative braking, reeling back serious energy to the system during tight turns and whatnots. Source: Ford A Record-Setting Legend At The Helm But a top-rank contender is nothing without a worthy pilot at the helm. Behind the tiller of the Super Mustang Mach-E is none other than Romain Dumas, a Pikes Peak legend who holds the all-time course record (in a Volkswagen, by the way) that the Blue Oval contender wants to break. It's a solid driver-car combo that resulted in a winning run for Ford last year. This year's Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is happening on June 22, 2025, with a slew of contenders from various automakers. One of them will be the Honda CR-V e:FCEV, set to become the first hydrogen-powered vehicle to complete the Race to the Clouds. About the Author Jacob Oliva View Profile
The Drive
5 days ago
- Automotive
- The Drive
Ford Is Backpedaling From EVs. So Why Is It Still Building Electric Race Cars?
The latest car news, reviews, and features. For the third year in a row, Ford is going back to the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb with a battery-powered, humungous-winged demonstrator to claim top honors and show the world what its electric vehicles can do when fully unleashed. First, it was the SuperVan 4.2, which set a record for the Open class; then, last year, it was the turn of the F-150 Lightning SuperTruck. The 2025 contender is the Super Mustang Mach-E: A roughly 3,400-pound switchback-carving monster with up to 2,250 horsepower that can generate nearly double its weight in downforce at speed. There's no question it'll be quick, especially compared to driver Romain Dumas' previous attempt in the SuperTruck, which was fastest in its category despite being held up by a 27-second stall. But after a year in which Ford has canned one large electric SUV project, delayed the F-150 Lightning's successor, and is reportedly idling an entire battery plant while leasing part of another to Nissan, you might wonder: Why bother with the fast EVs right now? This was exactly the question I posed to Mark Rushbrook. He's the Global Director of Ford Performance, the division responsible for everything from the Mustang Dark Horse, to Raptor off-roaders, to the company's various campaigns in endurance racing, rallying, and very soon, Formula 1. When I caught him, it was last Thursday afternoon before the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Busy time of year in that line of work. Ford's Super Mustang Mach-E demonstrator will take on Pikes Peak on June 22. Ford Ford's going big into hybrids—why not make a hybrid demonstrator? 'For sure as a company, we are committed to providing the powertrains of choice for our customers and the vehicles that they're wanting,' Rushbrook said. 'We will have ICE vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and full-electric vehicles, but the proportion of those over the years is going to change. I don't think we're getting to full EVs as quickly as we thought, but we're still getting there. 'We still have [electric] vehicles for sale today. We still have vehicles in the product development pipeline that are coming. What we're learning in motorsport, whether it's where we compete in ICE, in hybrid, or electric, is still informing all of our future products. So, we're still committed, we've got a lot of series where we race ICE, and it'll stay that way for a number of years. We've got even more series where we compete with hybrid, with our return to Formula 1, where it's 50/50 between the power from the ICE and power from electric, and also our [Le Mans] Hypercar program.' 2023's Ford SuperVan 4.2 demonstrator. Ford The insights Ford's taking from its full-electric endeavors inform the hybrid side, Rushbrook told me. And although the pace of Dearborn's EV rollout has slowed, as have those of other automakers, there are still electric cars in the pipeline, and electrification is ultimately where we're all headed. 'What we learn in our full-electric demonstrators can help what we do with hybrid vehicles that we sell to customers, because a lot of the technology with the battery cell chemistry, with the software, the calibration, the inverter—it is transferable,' Rushbrook said. 'Not necessarily directly, but what we're learning, or the methods, or the processes.' EVs still have their limits, even for the kinds of no-holds-barred, money-no-expense demonstrators Ford's built over recent years. It's why Formula E runs at tight street circuits rather than at F1 tracks, with their lengthy straightaways. Ford will have F1 and Le Mans to deploy hybrid tech, and of course, there are gas-powered Mustangs in the World Endurance Championship, IMSA, and NASCAR. But right now, if you want to show off the apex of all-electric performance, there's kind of no better gauntlet than Pikes Peak. An Open-class car scales the mountain in under nine minutes, and the weaknesses of internal combustion at high altitudes don't apply to EVs. 2024's Ford F-150 Lightning SuperTruck demonstrator. Ford 'If you take a technology like full electric to existing motorsports, it challenges it in that sense, right?' Rushbrook said. 'Like, to be where we are here at Le Mans and to do a 24-hour race. Yeah. That's not what EVs are intended for at this point, or certainly not what the technology is capable of at this point. But I don't know what it's going to be [capable of] in 10, 20, 30 years. Maybe they will be racing full-electric vehicles here in that timeframe. The benefit for us of the demonstrators is we're able to tailor what we do with a vehicle to what the technology is already capable of, but also pushing it further than what it's capable of to really learn about it.' There's also encouragement from both the likeliest and unlikeliest source you can imagine. 'As soon as [Ford CEO] Jim Farley saw the SuperVan 4—he was there at Goodwood with us—he said, 'All right, now let's take this to Pikes Peak,'' Rushbook told me 'And we said, 'Oh, well, if you want to go to Pikes Peak, and if you want to set a time, we need to build another SuperVan.'' Cue the evolved SuperVan 4.2, which had its powertrain, chassis, and aero package all completely reconfigured to tackle Pikes. It still holds the class record, at 8:47.682, and Ford should be able to beat that this go around—provided electrical snafus don't crop up at the wrong time, like they did in last year's SuperTruck. Ford The Super Mach-E is lighter than the F-150, by 270 pounds. It has a smaller frontal area, which lessens wind resistance. And it incorporates active wings and carbon ceramic brakes, both firsts for Ford at the event. The engineers have benefited from another cycle of learning how to better calibrate the power delivery, too. One notable thing that hasn't changed is the human at the helm, because you really can't do better than Romain Dumas. 'What he's able to do behind the steering wheel continues to amaze me,' Rushbrook said. 'But even more than that is his ability to, for the 12.42-mile course and 156 turns, he's able to come back after a run and break down in detail what has happened in each individual corner and what is good and what needs to be better.' With the 24 Hours of Le Mans a couple days ahead of our chat, I was left with one question for Rushbrook. Sure, we won't see full-EV Le Mans Hypercars anytime soon, but what about as a Garage 56 experiment, with ultra-rapid recharging? 'We've talked about [a Le Mans demonstrator] a lot across the years. The only thing I would say, maybe why we haven't done it, is the cost to run a 24-hour race is staggeringly high. So the cost of the demonstrator in that space would be way above what we're spending normally. But yeah, you never know.' I believe Rushbrook when he says they've had the conversation. Once you've scaled the highest peak, the question then becomes: Where to next? Got tips? Send 'em to tips@
The Drive
5 days ago
- Automotive
- The Drive
Ford's Most Hardcore EV Yet Has Active Aero, Carbon Brakes, and 2,250 HP
The latest car news, reviews, and features. Ford's steady drumbeat of record-conquering electric performance cars continues in 2025 with the Super Mustang Mach-E. Like the SuperVan 4.2 and the F-150 Lightning SuperTruck before it, this juiced-up race SUV will power up Pikes Peak under the careful control of Ford Performance driver Romain Dumas in yet another attempt to dethrone its own predecessor at the 2025 running of the International Hill Climb event. Ford's return to Colorado comes on the heels of a simultaneously impressive and disappointing 2024 outing. Despite a stall that stranded the SuperTruck for just shy of 27 seconds, it was only about 6 seconds slower up the mountain than the SuperVan. Those are some tortoise-and-the-hare type numbers. And the new Mach-E is even faster, Ford says. When he spoke to us, Ford Performance engineer Zach Burns was visibly proud of what the team accomplished in such a short period of time. Despite being spread across the globe (Europe, North Carolina, Michigan, and elsewhere), they managed to design, prototype, and build a brand-new race car in just under seven months. The physical car didn't even reach America until early May, when it was quickly shipped to Colorado for its first shakedown drives. With just six weeks from delivery to the green flag, Burns and the rest of the crew had a lot of testing to do. 'There was still snow at the top,' Burns recalled. Ford This year's entry is not merely iterative. The closest things you'll find to carry-over parts from the SuperTruck are all in the powertrain. A few production components remain—door handles, windshield wipers, and motors, things like that—but the bulk of what you see is the result of a ground-up redesign. Technically, the new Super Mustang Mach-E comes in two flavors. The version that Dumas will pilot at Pikes packs three motors (one front, two rear) with a combined output of 1,421 horsepower. However, there's an even more extreme variant with four motors (two front, two rear) to achieve a 2,250-hp total. After mothballing the SuperTruck in October, Ford's engineers started completely from scratch, throwing out the old race car's production-based suspension and steel brakes in favor of a new rocker-arm setup and some carbon ceramic stoppers. The Mach-E's braking system is actually more closely related to what you'll find in Ford's GT3 cars than anything you'd see on the street. Ford The comprehensive re-engineering allowed Burns and the rest of the shop to look for other opportunities to gain performance. EVs aren't exactly known for being svelte, but at 3,443 pounds, the three-motor variant is pretty light considering the power it lays down and the technology that keeps it glued to the mountain's surface. As if a 1,400-horsepower, 3,400-pound race car with instant torque wasn't already silly enough, the new active aerodynamics setup produces a mind-boggling 6,900 pounds of downforce at Pikes Peak—or essentially twice as much as the car physically weighs. The Mach-E's 3D-printed skid blocks will see a lot of action as they're slammed repeatedly into Pikes Peak's bumpy surface, but at least the new suspension will help keep the race car's body motions in check. On a smooth track, the aero can be cranked up to deliver up to 12,000 pounds of downforce. The 2025 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb kicks off June 22; keep an eye out for the Mach-E in the Open class once again. It should put on quite a show. Got a tip? Share it with us at tips@
Motor Trend
04-06-2025
- Automotive
- Motor Trend
Seeking Pikes Peak Record, Ford Ditches F-150 SuperTruck for New Super Mustang Mach-E
There are few races globally each year that hold such historic legacies and general allure as the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The 'race to the clouds' is run annually on a public road that snakes up a literal mountain, and it holds a tight grip on manufacturers looking to show just how good their motorsports engineers are. Last year, Romain Dumas took the win in the 2024 Ford F-150 Lightning SuperTruck but missed out beating Volkswagen's record of 7 minutes, 57 seconds in the ID.R, set in 2018 (and which was also driven by Dumas). For 2025, Dumas returns with Ford yet again with one goal and a new car. Or, rather, a new SUV: the Super Mustang Mach-E. 0:00 / 0:00 You'd think that Dumas would be content with holding the Pikes Peak record, but race car drivers are a finicky bunch and usually don't settle for 'good enough.' That's why Dumas continues to drive up Pikes Peak with a rival brand like Ford. He wants to beat the mountain, again, for that next hit of ecstasy knowing he's set a new, seemingly impossible record to break. It's also why Ford has hired him—the automaker knows he's one of the best going up that mountain thanks to a record that has stood for nearly a decade now. I Now Ford recognizes he needs a new ride, so this year, he's piloting something a bit closer to a car than a truck or van. The Mustang Mach-E is a wild looking creation, and a big step beyond the 2023 SuperVan 4.2 racer and Ford F-150 SuperTruck. The Mach-E also looks to continue the all-electric domination of Pikes Peak; since VW ran the ID.R to the current record, no ICE-powered vehicle has broken it. Details on the Super Mustang Mach-E are scarce right now, since all we have is an Instagram post from Ford introducing it. An all-new racing vehicle, it appears to carry over little from the SuperTruck or even the SuperVan 4.2. The entire aerodynamics package has changed, with larger diffuser tunnels exiting the rear. The rear wing has gone back to a more traditional race car design with endplates over the curved, body joining structure. Even the front spoiler has changed with thicker end plates and new features. But the biggest change of all is using the Mach-E body. While just as much of an interpretation as the Lightning SuperTruck was to the F-150, the Mach-E is much closer to looking like its road car version. Much like the NASCAR EV prototype, however, the Super Mach-E is more coupe like than four-door SUV of the street legal electric crossover. This has reduced the overall frontal area and looks to have possibly lowered the overall profile versus both SuperVan and SuperTruck. Ford has promised more details closer to the race, but 2025 is looking like a massive effort by the Blue Oval to give Dumas every chance to get that dopamine rush of taking the overall win and the record again.
