Driving the Ford Mustang Mach-E 1400 Race Automotive

If you happen to personal a Ford Mustang Mach-E GT Efficiency Version, congratulations: You personal the second-fastest Mach-E. The title-holder on that entrance—for concerning the previous two years and for the indefinite future—is the Mach-E 1400, a mutant race automotive constructed for exhibiting off and scaring folks. Its typical custodian is drifter and Mustang-building impresario Vaughn Gittin Jr., whose RTR Vehicles tuning home collaborated with Ford to create the factor. And so it has seven motors, 1400 or so horsepower, and sufficient downforce that working over a penny would most likely flatten it prefer it was left on the practice tracks. Ford let me drive it after solely a little bit little bit of mendacity about my resume. Did I say I’ve raced Le Mans? I meant that I raced in opposition to a Pontiac LeMans one time at my native Honkey-Tonk Bracket Brawls and Crawdad Raffle. Sorry for the confusion.

And they also buckle me into the Mach-E 1400 driver’s seat, a not clearly skeptical Gittin Jr. driving shotgun, and ship us out onto the infield street course at Charlotte Motor Speedway. If you happen to’ve by no means been there, simply think about blind decreasing-radius off-camber corners and plenty of partitions. There’s one nook the place it appears just like the observe truly ends at a wall, however then on the final second, it’s just like the Street Runner painted a piece of observe bending off to the fitting and also you slip by means of. Anyway, no complaints to the impact of “the venue was insufficiently technical.”

Ford did set the automotive as much as maximize its possibilities of making a secure return to the pits. For one factor, they geared it lengthy, to take the sting off the savage acceleration. Correctly geared for a observe like this, they stated, it will pull the within entrance tire off the bottom on nook exits. So the entrance finish was geared for 150 mph and the rear for 130 mph, speeds we wouldn’t come near attaining on the quick straights. In addition they biased it to really feel extra rear-drive than typical, that means that an undisclosed variety of the front-end horses was sidelined. (Of the seven motors, three are up entrance, and 4 energy the again.)

However nonetheless, this can be a automotive that ran a 10.4-second quarter-mile and will absolutely knock a while off that if it had been truly arrange as a drag automotive (, like with out wings that generate greater than 2300 kilos of downforce at 160 mph). But it surely’s constructed for road-course antics and drifting, as evidenced by the large handbrake to the fitting of the steering wheel. The nickel-metal battery with a gross capability of 56.8 kWh is sized for 45-minute thrill rides, that means a number of laps at a time interspersed with pit stops to change passengers. They are saying it’ll get round Virginia Worldwide Raceway simply advantageous, a declare we’d love to check on the subsequent Lightning Lap. When the Mach-E 1400 is plugged in to cost, it will get exterior coolant circulated by way of thick braided hoses, making it appear like Vecna in his lair on Stranger Issues. Hopefully, we gained’t go to the the other way up.

Heading out on pit row, Gittin Jr. encourages me to do the race-driver swerve, sawing the steering wheel forwards and backwards to wash and heat up the tires, adopted by a tough cease to get some warmth into the brakes. The instant first impression is that the steering is heavy. It’ll get even heavier momentarily.

I used to be warned about excessive steering effort when the entrance finish is loaded in a nook, however I wasn’t fairly ready for the exercise imposed by the Mach-E 1400. The primary nook is a protracted proper, and I nearly don’t add sufficient lock as a result of the steering looks like making an attempt to stir a vat of lead pudding. The difficulty is that the facility steering is hydraulic however powered by an electrical motor that spins at a continuing velocity. So across the pits, the help feels applicable, but it surely doesn’t ever ramp up. Path-braking into a quick nook, the entrance finish loaded up with downforce and weight switch, you’re feeling like somebody making an attempt to spin the latch of a bulkhead on a submarine that’s taking up water, veins coming out of your head as you muscle one other inch of lock. These entrance slicks are the scale of the rears on a GT3 race automotive, and the automotive weighs a claimed 5260 kilos. Throughout my drive, my coronary heart charge goes to 171 beats per minute—and never simply from pleasure. This factor is a exercise.

It is also extraordinarily fast. There’s by no means room to go wide-open for longer than a pair seconds, because the straights simply vanish whereas the gear whine from the diffs ramps up in pitch. SCREEE! Brake, wrestle the alligator that’s the steering, SCREEEEEE, brake. With no shifting or thundering internal-combustion soundtrack, the velocity is misleading. That stated—and I can’t imagine I’m saying this—it doesn’t actually really feel like 1400 horsepower. It feels about as fast because the quickest street-legal electrical four-doors, like a Lucid Air or Tesla Model S Plaid. Ford says the automotive’s Yasa P400R motors are able to 215 horsepower every, however the precise output is determined by the battery’s state of cost, and so they haven’t but examined it on an AWD dyno. So the 1400 moniker can be a goal reasonably than a specification.

In any case, it positive will get round a observe. There are a pair locations the place the partitions are far sufficient away that I really feel comfy pushing it, and when these massive slicks break unfastened, it’s all gradual and controllable. It is a massive automotive, and despite the fact that it’s arrange for vicious turn-in, the rear finish doesn’t really feel prefer it desires to take the lead. (That may doubtlessly be totally different in its drift setup, with the entrance driveshafts eliminated.) In regular cornering, there’s staggering grip. This can be a heavy race automotive, but it surely’s undoubtedly a race automotive.

I don’t get sufficient laps to actually work out the braking factors, so I err on the facet of braking arduous and early. The Brembo brakes really feel agency and haul down the Mach-E in a rush, however they’ve obtained their work minimize out for them. The entrance rotors are 15.0 inches, gripped by six-piston calipers, and the rears use 12.3-inch rotors and four-piston calipers. These are the identical brakes from Ford’s Mustang GT4 race automotive, in order that they’re actually stout, however a GT4 is claimed to weigh 3406 kilos and has one seat. So this automotive, with a entrance passenger, taxes these brakes with an additional 2000 kilos, give or take a lightweight lunch. It’s possibly not stunning, then, that once we pull again into the pits, smoke is pouring from the driving force’s facet rear wheel. I ask if there was a caught caliper, and the reply is not any. Possibly the rear finish might use a set of these entrance brakes too.

And that’s a part of the rationale for this automotive—studying the way to make an EV go quick and survive. It’s a piece in progress, however the concept is that classes accrued from this undertaking might filter all the way down to manufacturing automobiles. The Mach-E 1400 is a science undertaking, a growth mule, and a carnival hell experience multi functional. This is likely to be the primary 1000-hp electrical Mustang I’ve pushed, however I doubt it’ll be the final.