As Mustangs Daily reports, Patterson isn’t leaking much information on what those product debuts might be, but he did emphasize a quote made by Carroll Shelby in the year before his death.
In Shelby’s words, “I think you’re going to see the industry going completely to small engines with turbochargers. That’s the only way you can get the mileage that the government is going to be demanding.”
That would seem to indicate an EcoBoost-powered product under the Shelby umbrella, but what that may be is still up for speculation. Mustangs Daily believes it may be a reference to a Shelby-tuned Ford Focus ST, which already uses a 2.0-liter EcoBoost engine, but we’re not entirely buying into that theory just yet.
A more obvious choice, we think, would be an EcoBoost V-6-powered Mustang, which could have serious performance potential. The 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 used in the Ford Taurus SHO makes 365 horsepower and 420 pound-feet of torque at 12 PSI of boost, which is Ford’s relatively conservative stock tune meant to optimize engine life.
Push more boost, and we’d imagine that quite a bit more horsepower is available (at the expense of some engine life, but everything is a trade-off). Oddly enough, the V-6 EcoBoost weighs in at 449 pounds, with the Coyote V-8 tips the scales at 425 pounds, so don’t expect weight savings to help with performance.
Ford has already stated that the next Mustang will get an EcoBoost variant, so this is something we’ll all need to adapt to sooner or later. We’re not even averse to a turbocharged four-cylinder Mustang, possibly because we have fond memories of the old Mustang SVO.