2020 Ford Mustang EcoBoost Convertible with High Performance Package (HPP) Review (Autoblog)
It's easier to enjoy the HPP's better soundtrack with the roof down.
When we humans encounter something new in life, we tend to judge it based on previous life experiences. We benchmark where we are against where we've been.
My frame of reference, when settling in to drive a 2020 Ford Mustang EcoBoost Convertible with the High Performance Package, is my own 2007 Mustang GT convertible. That is, four-cylinder vs. V8.
My car is nose-heavy. Its clutch is drudgery. Its shifter isn’t all that smooth. Looking out over a big fake cowl, you feel less like you’re driving a car than like your seat is tethered behind the 4.6-liter V8. You're the jockey of a racing surrey attached to the business end of a horse. Then there's that solid rear axle. The car, with 300 horsepower and 320 pound-feet of torque, is no muscle car by today's standards, but it drives with the retro sensibilities of one. But when the top’s down for a summer cruise and the V8 is singing baritone in your ear, it’ll make you smile.
When the Mustang 2.3 EcoBoost came out in 2015, I could understand those who said, hey, this doesn’t sound like a Mustang. Never mind that the EcoBoost's performance was sufficiently Mustang — capable of 0-to-60 in 5.1 seconds and generating more horsepower and more torque than my V8, from half the displacement. The EcoBoost was great to drive, just a little odd to listen to.
Maybe Ford listened to that feedback. Or it pitied us, having taken the Focus RS away. Last year, it introduced the EcoBoost High Performance Package. And while the car still doesn’t sound like a V8, it's pretty righteous. No one would complain to hear these sounds coming out of a Golf R or a Subaru WRX STi or, of course, a Focus RS with the same engine. Besides, we’re right around the corner from getting a car called Mustang that won’t make any sound at all.
The $4,995 High Performance Package, or HPP, gives the 2.3-liter a boost of 20 horsepower, to 330, by adding a bigger twin-scroll turbocharger and tweaking engine calibration. (Though that’s still 20 less than the Focus RS.) Torque remains the same at 350 pound-feet, but it’s through a broader range, with at least 90% of peak available from 3,000 rpm through redline. (All of this is accomplished on premium gas.) There’s a larger radiator and larger brake rotors with four-piston calipers, a limited-slip differential, 19-inch black-accent aluminum wheels, aluminum dash with oil-pressure and boost gauges, the front splitter and belly pan from the GT Performance Package, rear wing, bigger rear sway bar, and a lot of chassis tuning.
