Yahoo Autos The 2024 Ford Mustang has a drift brake. What's that? It's AWESOME!
Step one: Gun it. Step two: Yank up on the handbrake and crank the wheel with your left hand from 2 o’clock down to 7. Step three: Feel the car whip around, bring handbrake down, gun it again. Congratulations, you are drifting in the 2024 Ford Mustang thanks to its new, unique-to-a-production-car electronic drift brake. It couldn’t be easier. You can also do some pretty sick Ace Ventura parking jobs.
I’m hardly a driving novice, but I’m also not one for tail-out histrionics, so my experience in this realm is limited. Specifically, I had never used a hand brake to induce a slide before. Despite this, I nailed using the drift brake on the first go, and by only the third try, had mastered it enough to dab in some opposite lock and keep on gunning it in the other direction. Yay me, but more importantly, yay the incredible piece of equipment that makes you look like a hero … and act like a doofus.
While many parking brakes are integrated within the rear calipers, 2024 Mustangs with the optional Performance Pack add Brembo calipers that are relocated from the rearward-side of the rotor to the forward. The “Performance Electronic Parking Brake,” as it’s officially known, adds a second set of calipers to the rearward side. It’s a key tell that the Mustang in question has the Performance Pack, along with a handbrake handle in place of the standard weeny, little button (pictured below right).
How the drift brake differs from a traditional parking brake, electronic or otherwise, is that it immediately provides a far greater amount of stopping power to lock up the wheels and quickly bring the rear end around. It’s also a far more robust unit than a typical parking brake. Plus, there are some electronic helpers working in the background to keep you in a controlled drift once sideways. Using the car’s stability control system, the auxiliary brake caliper will increase or decrease pressure on the rotor to keep you in the drift — it’ll even apply light pressure to the regular rear brake calipers if necessary to further increase “control.” In other words, I can’t go out to a parking lot right now and do in my ’98 Z3 exactly what I did in the Mustang. The brake wouldn’t lock up quickly enough, none of the electronic aids are present, the grip would almost certainly not be strong enough, and there’s a very good chance I’d end up needing a new parking brake, if not after the first go, then soon enough. Either way, I’d be acting and looking like a doofus.
