2020 Ford Mustang EcoBoost Becomes a Legitimate Performance Car
The latest four-cylinder pony car offers the heart of a Focus RS and transformative racetrack hardware.
As Ford prepares to launch its thermonuclear attack in the pony-car wars with the forthcoming 760-hp Shelby GT500, the company also has rearmed and retrained the lowest ranks of the 2020 Mustang corps. Enter the upgraded four-cylinder EcoBoost model, which now offers a feistier turbocharged 2.3-liter inline-four exhumed from the defunct Ford Focus RS, along with transformative racetrack hardware.
Conventionalists have stigmatized six- and four-cylinder muscle cars since the days of old, when there was nothing muscular about either engine type. Things are different today. The current Mustang EcoBoost's standard turbo four-banger makes 310 horsepower and 350 lb-ft of torque. For comparison, the fourth-gen Mustang GT, with its 4.6-liter V-8, maxed out at 260 ponies and 302 lb-ft. Still, the EcoBoost's huge power advantage has been diminished by its bashful exhaust note and less energetic behavior — at least until now.
