Recently a video clip popped up online of what was clearly a Ford Mustang Mach-E sans multiple body panels drifting around a test track at high speed. Shot from within the adjacent trees, it was clearly meant to imply that someone was sneaking around surreptitiously. The video was almost certainly shot by someone from either the Ford or RTR Vehicles communications teams of what we now know to be the Ford Mustang Mach-E 1400.
Over much of the past decade, rarely is a Mustang badged vehicle launched without some sort of collaboration with either Vaughn Gittin Jr, Ken Block or both. In this case, Gittin has taken the lead on creating a very special Ford EV. Ford shipped a prototype Mach-E body in white to Gittin’s RTR Vehicles shop to be made over. The engineers from Ford Performance worked with the RTR crew to put together a Mach-E unlike any other.
The quickest production Mach-E for now will be the GT with 459-hp and 612 kb-ft of torque from two electric motors, one at each axle. As implied by the name, this vehicle generates 1,400-hp via seven motors of 200-hp each. Three are stacked up feeding into the front differential while four feed into the rear.
The RTR team stripped down the body, installed a roll cage and other safety equipment along with four racing seats. The mostly carbon-fiber bodywork (except for the which is made from a composite of organic fibers) looks like a TCR-class race car with its front splitter and dive planes, bulging fenders and massive rear wing. All of this combines for up to 2,300-lb of downforce at 160-mph.
According to Ford, the goal of the configuration of this car was to enable it to be used as a test bed. With multiple motors feeding each axle, the engineers can adjust the output and experiment with a variety of configurations that could be used on production models with front, rear or all wheel drive and differing balance.
This wouldn’t be a Vaughn Gittin Jr car if it couldn’t drift like mad so the suspension has to accommodate the high steering angles used on these machines. However, that setup is inherently limited so the suspension configuration at each corner can be easily replaced for different sorts of work including road course handling and high-speed aerodynamics.
Getting 1,400 hp through the motors also requires a different battery configuration to accommodate the high rates of discharge needed. Currently the Mach-E 1400 has a 56.8-kWh battery filled with nickel-manganese-cobalt pouch cells. While that is nominally the same chemistry used in the production Mach-E, the actual balance has been revised and clearly the configuration of series and parallel circuits has to have been changed in order to pour out electrons fast enough to produce 1,400-hp.
One thing that was clear from the original “spy” video as well as the new clips released by Ford is that this sounds like no other production EV and certainly not any other high performance Mustang. In fact, its high-pitched whine is most reminiscent of Formula E race cars where most of the noise is actually coming from the gears.
The Mustang Mach-E 1400 will make its public debut at an upcoming NASCAR race that has yet to be announced, perhaps the Aug. 8-9 doubleheader at Michigan International Speedway. The video released by Ford shows the Mach-E 1400 facing off against Ken Block’s Hoonicorn, Chelsea Donofa in an RTR drift Mustang, Hailie Deegan’s GT350R and Joey Logano’s NASCAR Mustang.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2020/07/21/that-whine-you-hear-is-the-1400-hp-ford-mustang-mach-e-1400/
2020-07-21T00:00:00+00:00