Mustang CS500 Beats Mach-E GT in Drag Race, Proves ICE Isn’t Dead Yet
It’s a close one, but this slightly modified Ford Mustang CS500 has enough juice to overtake its EV stablemate.
By now, it’s pretty clear that the future of automobiles is electric, love it or hate it (and plenty of people do both). But regardless of your opinions on that particular hot topic, there’s no denying that electric vehicles are pretty darn quick, for the most part, with some of them handily outrunning everything but the most expensive and exotic ICE machinery on the planet. The Ford Mustang Mach-E GT is firmly in that group, but in this recent video from CarWow, Clive Sutton‘s modified Ford Mustang CS500 manages to put it in its place with some old school muscle.
The Mach-E GT has a pretty solid advantage on paper, thanks to its twin electric motors that produce a combined 480 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque – or 634 pound-feet in the Performance Edition – which pushes it to 60 mph in around 3.8 seconds, or 3.5 with the Performance Edition. On the flip side, we have the Ford Mustang CS500, the UK tuner’s entry-level package that helps boost output from the car’s 5.0-liter Coyote V8 from 450 to around 490 courtesy of an intake, exhaust, and tune. Torque isn’t specified, but it’s far less than the Mach-E GT, regardless.
That may not sound like much, but on the tarmac, this Clive Sutton-tuned pony car puts up one heck of a fight against the Mach-E GT. In the first race between the two, the ICE Mustang loses by a hair, but that can be attributed to a poor launch as the driver is just getting the hang of things. Once he sorts that out, he pilots the pony car to a slight win from a dig against the EV crossover, leading to a tie that must be broken with a roll race.
Unfortunately for the Mach-E GT, the crossover seems to lose a lot of steam at around 70 miles-per-hour, which is somewhat common among EVs. This allows the ICE Mustang to catch it and overtake it, chugging its way along to another victory. It’s quite frankly a shocking result, and one that most wouldn’t seem coming. But for ICE fans, it’s also a bit of ammunition in that never-ending argument over the merits of going electric.
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