My soft spot for Mustangs with half the requisite cylinders is both expansive and well-documented.

Long before Ford announced it was shoving a turbocharged, direct-injected four-cylinder into the 2015 Mustang, I was well on the path of losing my mind trying to put a similar powerplant into a Fox Body. Ford's motivations were mostly pure: yank more power out of less displacement for better fuel economy.

I just like starting fights with one arm amputated and a spoon sticking out of my skull.

The days of easily discerning whether the car in the lane next to you has an import-bashing, flag-waving, jerky-chewing V8 under the hood or your mother's vacuum cleaner behind the headlights have long since passed.

Ford realized that no one wants to look like they walked onto the lot and said, "No, I'll take the cheap one." Now the only visual differences between a topped-out GT and this car, a performance pack four-cylinder, are the wheels, brake calipers, and the badge between the taillights. You've got to be within licking distance to tell the two apart.

Zach Bowman

That's a good thing. You can't call the 2015 Mustang ugly and pass a polygraph. The car's a little awkward in photos, especially from the rear, but in the flesh, it's got zombie-Elvis presence. I can't help but stare, and then I start worrying about what it's going to do to my brain.

I should worry. It's going to root around in there and squeeze on the parts that make me drool and think I can outrun the repo man. Even worse, I could, at least until that rat bastard started staking out tire shops. There are only so many watering holes in the desert.

The car's a little awkward in photos, but in the flesh, it's got zombie-Elvis presence.

And then I hit the start button. I've been conditioned to expect the rumble and kick of a V8 barking holes in the ozone layer, but the 2.3-liter EcoBoost under the hood whispers its way to a content idle. Zero drama. I'll admit, it stings a little. But this car came with a six-speed manual, and unlike the meaty clunkbox in the GT, the action on this transmission is good and light. It feels like I can rip off some shifts without waiting for the synchros to work out the planetary alignment calculations necessary to pass the GT's 435 horsepower from one delicate cog to the next. It feels good.

Zach Bowman

It's funny what a heart transplant will do for a car. It's not just the power differential. Yeah, there's 310 horsepower here, but the whole car seems smaller, more approachable. It's got a personality that says, "Hey man, let me buy you a Coke," not, "Hey man, pick your teeth up off my boots." It's a pleasant adjustment.

I grew up making a long line of Japanese four-cylinders wish they'd never been bolted together. I have no qualms about lashing an engine to redline in vicious pursuit of every last ounce of thrust, and that's precisely where this engine is happiest. Leave it under 4000 rpm and your loved ones will find you stone dead in the driver's seat, a victim of terminal boredom. But get your hands around this mill's throat, squeeze a little, and you'll both have a hell of a time.

I grew up making a long line of Japanese four-cylinders wish they'd never been bolted together.

The Camry exhaust note gets replaced with some attractive heavy breathing, and the turbo whistle adds a little frosting to the cake. Since burying the throttle doesn't immediately rocket me to penitentiary-bound speeds, I find myself pushing the car more often, getting cozy with that brilliant, rigid chassis and sublime suspension.

There's some sort of trickery going on here. The car feels soft and a little under damped until you get thrashing. Instead of body roll and understeer, there's sharp turn-in and vicious grip. You can overcook this thing, but you've got to mean it. As a result, you can push and push and seldom come close to exceeding the car's capabilities or your own. It's more rewarding in more situations than that explosion of a car, the Mustang GT.

Yeah, I said it.

You can rant and rave, throw an endless list of numbers in my face, call my judgment suspect and my intelligence lacking, but there's only one real measure of a car: the size of your grin when you're behind the wheel. This thing doesn't come up short.

Zach Bowman

I'm standing at a gas pump, putting fuel into the tank and thinking how much I love things like turbochargers and direct injection and the ceaseless march of man's progress when the guy on the other side of the island looks my way.

"So that's what a 2015 Mustang looks like, huh? What motor's in it?"

"It's the four cylinder."

"Huh. So they're making the girl version again?"

Herein lies the plight of the four-cylinder Mustang owner. This isn't even my car, and this dude's got my hackles up. I entertain whipping him in the head with the half-frozen window washer at my feet, if for no other reason than he'd have to go home and tell his wife how some punk in a Girlstang nearly squeegeed his face off. I think better of it. Winding up in jail because someone insulted your Mustang is a little too hill folk, even for me.

Zach Bowman

It's a damn shame this car's wrapped in a Mustang body. The shared sheetmetal means it will always be held against the mighty GT, and as a result, always found lacking. This is America, where the sun rises in the east, sets in the west, and there's 40 acres of more-is-better in between.

Winding up in jail because someone insulted your Mustang is a little too hill folk, even for me.

In a different set of clothes, the world might view this car as a new wonder: something quick on its feet with enough power to put a big toe on the necks of cars like the BRZ, Miata, and if we're reaching, the 370Z. But there's a pony in its grille and a four cylinder under the hood. It's the most underestimated version of a car that already feels self-conscious at any table with cars like the M3 and 911, regardless of actual performance.

Maybe that's why I like it so much. There's nothing more American than blackening someone's eye who thinks you can't reach their nose.

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