2024 Ford Mustang EcoBoost Remixes a Hit

Not everybody can afford to tick all of the packing containers; some people merely desire a piece of a beloved story. With new Mustangs, meaning EcoBoost: the bottom mannequin and fleet star, the four-cylinder discovered at Hertz counters coast to coast.

The Mustang stays the one true automobile in Ford’s lineup, the lone holdout in a variety of crossovers and vehicles. The outgoing era, which Ford referred to as S550, ran from mannequin years 2015 to 2023. The brand new automobile, S650, is principally the outdated automobile underneath a average makeover. It appears to be like totally different, with a nicer inside, and the brand new sprint screens are sufficiently big to eat Milwaukee. When you’re uninterested in studying, that is actually all that issues. However you most likely wish to know extra—the world is all the time interested in a brand new Mustang.

For 2024, Ford’s well-known pony appears to be like sharper and cleaner, besides up entrance, the place it has a mouth like a toothy carp. The bottom automobile, whether or not coupe or convertible, will get a model of Dearborn’s EcoBoost turbo 4—2.3 liters, 315 horsepower at 5500 rpm, 350 lb-ft of torque at 3000 rpm. The outgoing EcoBoost Mustang made 310 horses, except you obtain the optionally available hot-rod pack, which gave it 330. That choice is now lifeless, which stinks. In different smelly information, a 10-speed automated is now the one transmission, with the six-speed guide axed for the EcoBoost. Boo hiss.

The brand new engine is optimized for effectivity, principally through lowered friction and mass. The coupe’s EPA fuel-economy rankings have risen 1 mpg mixed and on the freeway; they’re now 26 mpg mixed, 22 metropolis, and 33 freeway. EPA numbers for the 2024 EcoBoost convertible usually are not but public, however final yr they lagged no less than 2 mpg behind the coupe’s. As on S550 EcoBoosts, there’s an optionally available Efficiency pack. For $3475, you get wider wheels and tires, an engine-bay brace, a Torsen limited-slip differential with a 3.55:1 final-drive ratio (as earlier than, 3.15:1 with a clutch-type restricted slip is normal), MagneRide adaptive dampers, fixed-caliper Brembo brakes, and a “drift stick” hand-brake lever on the middle tunnel.

That lever is a gimmick however enjoyable. In sane driving, the lever gently engages the digital parking brake. Punch a button within the sprint menus and it turns into an old style flyoff, telling the brake software program to immediately lock the rear wheels, which might snap them right into a slide. This characteristic is neat and giggly, and it really works nicely.

About that sprint: Some glass cockpits are simply try-hard, even if you happen to love screens. This one stands proud like a sore thumb stuffed with pixels. There is a 12.4-inch show above the steering column and a 13.2-inch touchscreen over the middle console. The software program interface is clear and principally intuitive, which is sweet, as a result of the inside holds few bodily buttons. Nonetheless, gross finger smudges and dirt collect shortly, and within the Mustang’s flippantly retro cockpit, all of it wears like a cringey toupee.

Ford let journalists attempt new EcoBoosts on Los Angeles roads and a easy autocross course. We ran the latter in a Efficiency-package coupe, then took a purple Premium-level convertible for a jaunt via close by mountains. The Efficiency pack would have been good there, although the trim we tried is mostly extra vital.

The bottom EcoBoost is the amount play, how most Mustang drivers will meet the title. Like its predecessor, it is a wonderful automobile, in the way in which that Chipotle makes a wonderful burrito: not nice, not horrible, however adequate, given worth and magnificence. The seats are comfortable and decently supportive. The inside is a pleasant uptick over the outgoing association, with much less onerous plastic. Cowl shake is current within the convertible however not annoying. The electronically boosted brakes are slightly grabby at parking speeds, however the electronically assisted energy steering no less than suggests load on the entrance tires, which implies it beats the business normal.

Does a Mustang desire a V-8? Certain, however the inline-four provides first rate and prepared torque, principally within the midrange. Sadly, the 10-speed automated is perpetually in a rush to shift up, dragging the tach needle down the dial, the place the engine moans and drones. (When you get the optionally available efficiency exhaust, fill the glovebox with Advil, except you are indulging within the goofy Distant Rev perform that permits you to blip the throttle from afar with through the important thing fob.) The gearbox has a Low mode however in any other case can’t be shifted manually except you pay for the optionally available shift paddles.

Remarkably, for the entire above, the tally right here is nice, with a way of sunshine event. Freeway habits is all-day chill however will not put you to sleep. The trade-off is dowdy manners on again roads, the place the physique is managed however floaty. Sharpening these reflexes would possible imply shedding some consolation and mass enchantment, and that is not what base Mustangs are about—not how they discover garages in center America, how they outsell base Camaros and a lot else at or under the worth.

The revised four-banger Mustang is simple to stay with, inexpensive if you happen to squint, and greater than the sum of its components, as base Mustangs have all the time been. Plus, it has that intangible draw, the pull of the unique pony automobile. That is no V-8, however proximity to energy is the next-best factor. The EcoBoost nonetheless seems like an attainable chunk of a grand outdated line, and that most likely makes lots of consumers very joyful. With a reputation like this, that may be all that counts.

Contributing Editor

Sam Smith is a contract journalist and former govt editor at Highway & Observe. His writing has appeared in Esquire and the New York Instances, and he as soon as drove a Japanese Dajiban round a observe at velocity whereas being purposely deafened by a recording of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.” He lives in Tennessee along with his household, a small assortment of misfit autos, and a spaniel who’s frightened of squirrels.