Ford Bringing Line Lock to EcoBoost Mustangs for 2018

Easy burnouts: No longer dependent on having a V8 under the hood.

byWill Sabel Courtney|
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The days of V8 Mustang owners being the only ones able to light up the rear tires with the help of the car's computers are about to be over. For the 2018 model year, the EcoBoost version of the Ford Mustang will also come with the line lock feature that enables easy-as-pie burnouts. 

The change now means that line lock—which was originally designed to warm up the rear rubber ahead of a drag race, but in the real world has been largely used for, shall we say, stuntin'—is available on all new 'Stangs, whether they're equipped with the six-speed manual transmission or the new 10-speed automatic gearbox. If the owner of the 2018 Ford Mustang in question has sprung for the 12-inch digital instrument panel, activating line lock also brings up a cute little animation of a wheel doing a burnout—as you can see in this handy, Ford-provided GIF.

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Granted, with more than 320 pound-feet of torque flowing to the rear wheels (Ford hasn't said exactly how much torque the 2018 model will make, but says it'll be more than the 2017 version), the EcoBoost Mustang didn't exactly have trouble laying a patch before the addition of line lock. But the new feature should make it all the easier, especially for the inexperienced drivers the pony cars sometimes seem to attract

To hype up the new feature, Ford brought a brand-new Mustang EcoBoost out to California's Irwindale Speedway to have noted drifter Vaughn Gitten Jr. show average folks how the new system works. 

“Burnouts just never get old, no matter how old you are and how many times you’ve done them,” Gitten Jr. said in a statement. “Who would have thought that we would see an EcoBoost Mustang producing 15 seconds of fury like this? You’ve got to love these rad things Ford is doing.”

And indeed we do, Vaughn. Indeed we do. 

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