2020 Ford Mustang Ecoboost HPP Review (GTspirit)
The Ford Mustang is one of Americas strongest automotive icons and has been since it was first unveiled back in 1964. Besides the Corvette, no other car produced in North America is more famous or more recognizable. Now in it’s sixth generation, today’s car has come a long way from the classic original – more rigid, more agile, and more powerful. Over the last decade, Ford has worked particularly hard to keep the car fresh and competitive.
It’d been a long time since I’d driven one. I believe it was back in 1989 or so that I got a chance to drive a 1984 Mustang convertible automatic four-cylinder. While driving with the roof folded down was a new and enjoyable experience, the rest of the drive was memorable for all the wrong reasons – the car, making under 100 hp, was painfully slow and the steering wheel seemed almost disconnected from the front wheels, to the point that it seemed dangerous in the curves. Hey, it was from the early eighties – a time not known for producing good cars. But by the late eighties, Ford was offering cars like the Mustang GT, which came with a 5.0L V8 and made a then-mighty 220 hp. It was the car that I and all the other gearheads in high school wanted. So with 30 years under the bridge since my last drive, I figured it was time to revisit the Mustang.
Ford was kind enough to loan us an Ecoboost Coupe version of their iconic muscle car. For those of you not in the know, the Ecoboost is Ford’s turbocharged four-cylinder engine. While it wasn’t the high-power V8 that made the model famous, this four-cylinder already had more horsepower than the V8 car I wanted back in high school and the turbocharged four-cylinder engine is not without precedent. In the mid-1980’s, when all of America wanted a 5.0L V8 Mustang, the SVO (Special Vehicle Operations) team released the Mustang SVO – a four-cylinder Mustang turbocharged to the hilt and loaded with performance goodies. To those in the know, it was a much more potent sports car than the GT. So I was eager to check out the 2.3L Ecoboost.
Our car came with all the performance packages you could get on the Ecoboost model: the 2.3L High-performance Ecoboost Engine; the 2.3L High-Performance Package, which consisted of a limited-slip differential, active-valve performance exhaust, summer performance tires, and some decorative trim pieces; Recaro seats; and a 10-speed automatic transmission. That all sounds promising, right?
