Ford’s product plan for its all-important entry into the electric vehicle market didn’t initially include a sporty version.
Speaking to Muscle Cars & Trucks, Darren Palmer, Ford’s general manager for EVs, said that the GT was a late addition to the Mustang Mach-E lineup.
“So GT wasn’t originally in the plans, but when we saw what it could be we added it,” Palmer told MC&T. “We knew we needed to go further, so that’s why we went for the GT.”
Read Also: Ford To Start Accepting Mustang Mach-E GT Orders From April 28
Exactly what convinced Ford to go further wasn’t made clear, but this isn’t the only change made late in the Mach-E’s development. Speaking to Road & Track in December, Ford’s global director for battery electric vehicles, Jason Castriota, revealed that adding the Mustang moniker to the Mach-E happened very late in the project.
“The idea of how do we stand out in the crowd, how do we cut through all the noise and the clutter of yet another all-electric vehicle became really the essential question that we had to solve,” Castriota told R&T. That led the team to add the name, change the look, and engineer some performance chops to the vehicle to make it a credible Mustang. It seems the same urge led Ford to add the GT model to the lineup.
“And so the GT is launching soon and that brings it to another level,” said Palmer. “The performance on that thing, the acceleration, it’s like almost nothing we’ve ever sold. It’s going to really change people’s impression.”
Order books for the Mustang Mach-E GT are opening next week. The EV’s high-performance variant will pump out 459 hp 600 lb-ft of torque, while the even more powerful GT Performance will make 480 hp and 634 lb-ft.
