2025 Ford Mustang GT Review

For driving enthusiasts unconcerned with track-day glory, the 2025 Mustang GT is the sweet spot in the pony car lineup.

Benjamin Hunting | 

Jul 3, 2025 | 7 min read

Benjamin Hunting

The Ford Mustang has long served a dual purpose for the Blue Oval, providing people with a stylish and relatively affordable car while simultaneously offering a range of increasingly outrageous high-performance variants to entice driving enthusiasts.

Bookending the 2025 Mustang lineup are the entry-level EcoBoost, which relies on a turbocharged four-cylinder engine, and the Dark Horse, a hardcore V8-powered model for track-day thrills. Between them, you'll find the true sweet spot for street-performance fans in the Mustang GT, a vehicle that also delivers eight-cylinder action — but at a considerable discount compared with the Dark Horse.

Another Mustang GT bonus? It's available as either a coupe or a convertible, a choice not available to Dark Horse buyers. Add that to the GT's generous helping of available comfort features and go-fast equipment, and I think the GT stands out as an appealing member of the trio.

Benjamin Hunting

About the 2025 Ford Mustang GT Review Vehicle

The 2025 Ford Mustang comes in EcoBoost, GT, and Dark Horse trim levels, each further divided into base and Premium editions. Both the EcoBoost and the GT add the additional benefit of a coupe or convertible body style. Prices range from the mid-$30,000s to the low $70,000s, including the destination charge for shipping the Mustang to a dealership from the Flat Rock, Michigan, assembly plant.

For this Mustang review, I drove a GT Premium convertible in and around the mountain roads of southeastern Quebec, as well as through Montreal's metropolitan streets. Options included the 401A High Equipment Group, GT Performance Package, and California Special Package, plus a MagneRide adaptive suspension, Ford's Active Valve exhaust system, and a B&O premium sound system.

Those upgrades increased the manufacturer's suggested retail price to $74,035, which includes the $1,995 destination charge. Ford provided the Mustang GT convertible for this review.

Benjamin Hunting

Mustang GT Offers Customization That Dark Horse Doesn't

Ford has long leaned on the Mustang's heritage to inform its styling, and that remains true for the 2025 GT. Although thoroughly contemporary in its appearance, there's a clear link between its design cues and Mustangs of yore.

Even the most modern aspects of the 2025 Mustang leverage nostalgia. For example, with its traditional gauge cluster replaced by a rectangular LCD screen, the Mustang gives drivers several retro-themed speedometer and tachometer packages to cycle through.

Compared with the pricier Dark Horse, the GT lacks some of that car's more aggressive aerodynamic elements. The interior accents available in the Dark Horse Appearance package are also unavailable. That said, the GT still offers plenty of customization options.

My test vehicle's California Special package splashed "Rave Blue" decals, grille inserts, and trim on the car. Matching painted aluminum 19-inch wheels stood in stark contrast to the black paint. If you've got other color palettes in mind, you can opt for the self-descriptive Nite Pony and Bronze Appearance packages, or even celebrate the Mustang's history with its 60th Anniversary package. None of those upgrades are available with the mostly monochromatic Dark Horse.

Benjamin Hunting

The Mustang GT Offers Some Sophisticated Tech

There's basically nothing about the Mustang GT's feature set that particularly stands out when compared with other performance cars, but some people might be surprised by its sophistication.

Still, while the Sync 4 infotainment system is intuitive and easy to use, I experienced one or two instances where the 13.2-inch touchscreen froze on certain menus or took 90 seconds to appear after vehicle start-up (issues that did not affect the digital gauge cluster). The system includes wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity, but I struggled to keep my phone connected without using a cable.

My GT test car had a manual transmission, and I was impressed with how well its adaptive cruise control — part of the Co-Pilot360 Assist+ package — worked with the clutch.

Benjamin Hunting

When caught in heavy traffic, I was able to downshift as required during slowdowns without the system disengaging, which took some of the stress out of bumper-to-bumper commuting. The only difference when compared with an automatic-equipped Mustang was the absence of a "stop and go" feature — understandable, given the mechanics of a manual gearbox.

However, I found the lane-keeping assist more of a mixed bag. It would gently steer away from the outside lane markers when drifting towards them casually — albeit intervening later than I would have liked — but in curves it was easily kerfuffled and regularly allowed the car to stray over the lines.

Benjamin Hunting

The Mustang GT Delivers Superb Street Performance

All versions of the 2025 Ford Mustang GT feature a 5.0-liter V8 engine good for 480 horsepower and 415 pound-feet of torque when running 93 octane fuel. A six-speed manual gearbox is standard, but the vehicle's 10-speed automatic is a no-cost option for 2025.

The GT convertible I drove came equipped with the GT Performance Package ($5,660), which made improvements to the car's capabilities. On the suspension side, it adds chassis bracing, a larger rear sway bar, uprated springs at the front, and a more aggressive tune all around. Brembo brakes and a "drift brake" feature are also part of the package, the latter allowing manual control of the electric parking brake. Lastly, Ford swaps in a 3.73 rear axle ratio (for manual cars) with a Torsen limited-slip differential.

All that equipment helps the Mustang GT walk the line between a rapturously raucous hooligan and a surprisingly effective performance machine. This is a very, very quick car, with the V8 engine really coming alive above 3,500 rpm in a surge of power that rushes to redline in a glorious exhalation of hydrocarbons.

You can fine-tune the tenor of that thunderous soundscape by way of the available active exhaust system. If you're uncertain about your heel-and-toe downshifting skills, the car can blip the throttle for you, and its software will even help you launch from a dead start via a launch-control feature (although I had better results slipping the clutch myself). Those tech assists fly in the face of any expectations that Ford's pony is a rough-around-the-edges beast.

Benjamin Hunting

Additionally, the optional MagneRide suspension is a particularly effective tool for relaxed driving, doing a solid job of absorbing abusive asphalt when set to full soft, without dulling its response on smoother surfaces in Sport mode. There's some bounce in the GT's strut, and it occasionally feels big from behind the wheel, but nothing is intimidating about accessing its performance potential.

Just keep in mind that excessive use of the go pedal will quickly drain your wallet at the fuel pump. Still, I averaged 24 mpg on my driving loop, beating the official EPA estimate of 18 mpg in combined city and highway driving with the manual transmission.

Keen eyes will notice that my test vehicle's spec sheet contains similar equipment to the performance-oriented Mustang Dark Horse. They include the strut-tower brace, limited-slip rear end, active exhaust, Brembo brakes, and MagneRide suspension. However, there is more to the pricier model that separates it from the Mustang GT.

The Dark Horse's 5.0-liter V8 generates 20 additional horsepower, a marginal gain. Still, the engine's real upgrades are invisible to the eye, including strengthened connecting rods that ensure safer operation at high engine speeds. The six-speed manual found in the Dark Horse is also different, featuring a cooled unit from Tremec to make the Mustang's driveline that much more robust. The Tremec transmission also adds no-lift shifting to the Dark Horse.

Benjamin Hunting

Is the 2025 Ford Mustang GT a Good Car?

Do you really need the Dark Horse's 20 extra horsepower, hardened engine internals, and a more robust gearbox to have fun on the street? No. Unless you're regularly beating on the car in a harsh environment, I think the Mustang GT is the smarter value play over the Dark Horse.

Comparing the two in base specification, there's roughly $18,000 of daylight between their respective prices, and even after adding the GT Performance Package, the gap is well in the five-figure range. Do you want the top to go down, too? The GT Premium convertible remains nearly $13,000 less expensive than the comparable Dark Horse Premium coupe.

Given the demise of the Chevrolet Camaro and the Dodge Challenger, the Mustang is the only game left in town for muscle car fun — and the GT should be your prime target.

Benjamin Hunting

Nearly two decades into his career as an automotive journalist, Benjamin has had his hands greasy, his hair blown back, and his heart broken by more than one project car. In addition to his work at Capital One, he has contributed features and reviews to Motor Trend, Car and Driver, Hagerty, Driving Line, Inside Hook, Super Street, European Car, Roadkill Magazine, Motor 1, The Drive, the Toronto Star, the National Post, Business Insider, NAPA, Autoblog, Automotive News Canada, and AutoGuide. He is also cohost of the Unnamed Automotive Podcast and cocreator of the Code 45 and Dead Air graphic novels. In his spare time, he's a friend to vinyl and enjoys keeping the shiny side up during track days.