When the Mustang Dark Horse SC was first revealed, I noticed that most people were speculating about its horsepower. Would it be more than this? Less than that? Then, its horsepower was revealed and most publications immediately jumped at the chance to reveal it. And also at the chance to say it wasn’t as much as the Mutsang GTD Competition.
Is horsepower even how we measure cars anymore? Does it even mean anything in 2026? I think it matters to an extent, but it’s not the main point anymore.
The Mustang Dark Horse SC has a lot of horsepower
The Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC features a supercharged 5.2-liter V8 that delivers 795 horsepower. I’d say that’s a bit more than predicted. I’d also say that it’s a lot of horsepower. It’s more horsepower than most people can handle or will ever have the opportunity to experience. Yet we have people comparing it to the horsepower of a Shelby GT500 and GTD Competition.
The only people who will experience even close to 795 horsepower in a Dark Horse SC are drag drivers. But let’s be clear, the Mustang has drag racing in its history. It’s a pony car, but it’s often been lumped in with the muscle cars chasing that quarter-mile time in the 1970s. In that sense, I can see why Mustang culture still carries that fascination with horsepower, although most Mustang drivers would probably fly off the road and crash into a barrier if they even attempted to push 500 horsepower. I recently went to a car show where a pack of Mustangs showed up, and one guy had a Stage 3 with about $30,000 in the engine. He was telling my boyfriend that he could push 1,100 horsepower and that got my boyfriend excited, fantasizing about adding more horsepower to his own Mustang.
I guess it’s just not my culture. My boyfriend’s Mustang has more horsepower than all four of my cars combined. So, I could be biased.
But I’m not really hating on the Mustang community. Again, I get why horsepower is a talking point. It’s part of the car: power, muscle, raw speed. But the ongoing discussion of the Mustang Dark Horse SC’s horsepower got me thinking about horsepower in general. We keep seeing horsepower as some selling point for a wide range of cars that will never be on the drag strip. I mean, we have family SUVs with over 1,000 horsepower.
And that’s more my point.
EVs have made 1,000 horsepower boring
At this point, listing a car’s horsepower has sort of lost its intrigue for me. I recently wrote about how the 0-60 hype is dead. Well, I think EVs ruined the horsepower hype, too. If every single electric SUV has 800, 900, 1,000 horsepower, what’s even the intrigue anymore? When we used to talk about horsepower a few decades ago, it was more about seeing how automakers could push engine and car design, creating a powerful outlier that broke the mold and became a fantasy. When you watched videos of a 1,200-horsepower hypercar, it felt like something special. An achievement. Now, you just throw a motor or two in there and you’re there.
The Mustang Dark Horse SC has a fully gas-powered engine, and so does the Mustang GTD, which showed just how impressive ICE cars can be on the ‘Ring. I think there are still some specific spaces where horsepower talk can be exciting, like with a Mustang club. But the general hype over horsepower has definitely been killed by EVs. The numbers become almost meaningless when it’s easy to get there over and over and over. I know I’m not the only one who feels nothing when a car has over 1,000 horsepower these days. I almost expect it.
The only way for an EV to shock us to have even more horsepower, but who is even using the 1,000? Remember my other rant, when I said that charging times were becoming so ridiculous that they went past the point of “who can make EVs more practical” and into the “I’m just trying to beat a record” realm. Horsepower is in that same boat. It’s just making vehicles more expensive despite the driver never even experiencing the thing that made it more money. I don’t see the point.
With every car now easily hitting 1,000 hp, I think we need to step back and look at each car’s performance. The turning, the handling, the steering feel, if you feel engaged and happy behind the wheel. Not every 1,000-hp SUV will make you feel that. The thing is, I think the Dark Horse SC still will. It did nothing wrong by being nearly 800 horsepower. I just think its impressive stat has been tainted by the current state of cars. My argument isn’t for the Dark Horse SC to have less horsepower. It’s for family SUVs to have less horsepower, to give the cars meant to have more horsepower a space to shine.
As it stands now, everything has more horsepower than drivers know what to do with. And it has sucked the joy out what used to be a fun talking point.
