2026 Ford Mustang RTR First Drive: Gittin Lit Is Nothin’ but a Good Time
Is Ford and RTR’s drift-influenced creation the best EcoBoost Mustang to date?
Not a secret: Automotive writers who’ve been around the business for more than a few years can be ... how to put this anywhere near diplomatically ... a cynical bunch. Grouchy, even. Or so I’ve been, er, told a few (meaning at least 197) times throughout the past 20 years. But what the tellers should remember, and also not a secret: There’s a lot of hyperbole in this business, be it delivered via executive speeches made during new car reveals or far more frequently in the form of press releases machine-gunned into inboxes around the globe.
These missives are written by folks (or maybe AI nowadays) who sometimes have an impressively keen knack for crafting salesmanship prose that almost convinces you something as mundane and lazy as a graphics package or a spoiler somehow bestows a motor vehicle with more “dynamism” or “sportive” character. Or any number of other similar adjectives that’ve been run into the ground and back and should never be uttered or written again.
With that context hanging in the background, it should come as no surprise that we weren’t automatically putting much stock in the first bullet point found in the official press release for the 2026 Ford Mustang RTR: “[This] is the most thrilling, fun-to-drive turbocharged Mustang ever, elevating attainable sports car performance for a new generation of thrill-seekers.”
Here at MotorTrend, our relationship with turbocharged four-cylinder EcoBoost Mustangs has evolved in the past decade since Ford introduced the model. From mixed feelings and powertrain irritations a decade ago to being much more pleased overall with the latest version, we no longer roll our collective eyes when we read the hyperbolic hype prior to getting behind the wheel of Ford’s most attainable Mustang. And after driving the 2026 Mustang RTR, we’re the most enthusiastic we’ve yet been about a Ford pony car rolling with this engine …
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/first-drive-2026-ford-mustang-rtr
