Ford Mustang GTD Sets Nürburgring Record for Fastest American Car

It’s official. Ford holds the record for the fastest North American production car at the Nürburgring with the Mustang GTD. It went 6 minutes, 57.685 seconds, topping the Dodge Viper ACR by 4.3 seconds. It is the only car from the ‘States to turn a sub-seven-minute lap at the famed 12.9-mile Nordschleife loop. According to Ford, it’s one of six production sports cars globally to break the seven-minute barrier.

The record-setting lap took place on August 7, so Ford has been quietly concealing this news for some time.

Multimatic Motorsports driver Dirk Muller was behind the Mustang’s wheel, bringing two years of development, testing, and simulation work to a close. This 14-minute documentary highlights the challenges of running under seven minutes at the Nordschleife.

The Mustang GTD’s lap time beats the Lamborghini Aventador SuperVeloce and Ferrari 296 GTB, and matches the Porsche 918 Spyder. Those are some heavy hitters, but Ford is still far away from claiming the fastest front-engined production record. That currently belongs to the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series, which went 6:43.61 back in 2020. The current overall Nürburgring record for production cars is held by the Mercedes-AMG One at 6:29.09. As good as the GTD is, it would likely need some significant upgrades to challenge the AMG GT Black Series, never mind the One.

But, Ford CEO Jim Farley says there’s more for GTD to give. He pledges more laps will come in 2025.

“The team behind Mustang GTD took what we’ve learned from decades on the track and engineered a Mustang that can compete with the world’s best supercars,” said Farley. “We’re proud to be the first American automaker with a car that can lap the Nürburgring in under seven minutes, but we aren’t satisfied. We know there’s much more time to find with Mustang GTD. We’ll be back.”