THIS BOSS 302 HAS ONLY 20,500 MILES. “The Boss 302 is the perfect Mustang.” That, friends, is extraordinarily high praise. The thing is…this praise is absolutely right. If you’ve never driven a Boss 302, then let me try to articulate what this car really is all about.
The Boss 302 is a huge improvement over the standard 5.0-liter Mustang GT, and it does so without coming across as overly brittle, uncomfortable, or noisy.
Power comes from a ‘Roadrunner’ 5.0-liter V-8. It produces 444 horsepower, 380 pound-feet of torque, and will sprint to 60 in around 4.2 seconds. Power peaks jump from 6500 and 4250 rpm to a sub-orbital 7400 and 4500 rpm for horsepower and torque, respectively. The engine is a screamer. With such high-power peaks, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this engine was only usable at the top of the rev range. You’d be wrong, though.
Ford’s 2013 Boss, has some track-focused interior items - standard Alcantara steering wheel, black cue-ball shifter, and optional Recaro sport seats - give the cabin a feeling of purpose.
Despite the racing pretensions of the Boss interior, the Boss is still quite a relaxing place for a long drive. Give credit to the excellent seats for that. The Recaros are big, tall, and wide, meaning it was quite easy for a variety of body types to get comfortable and stay comfortable over long stretches. They feel less pretentious and more functional than your typical leather-clad racing seat.
Ford did a brilliant job of tuning the transmission, despite its carbon-fiber plates and short-throw shifter, and is disturbingly easy to learn and use.
Unlike some other track-focused cars, like a Porsche 911 GT3, the clutch is light and easy to manipulate. There is plenty of feedback coming from it, and the broad catch point (along with the prodigious torque from the engine) made for an easy-going, first-gear experience. The short-throw shifter features an excellent mechanical-feeling linkage between the gears. Rowing from first to sixth was a tactile experience that is normally reserved for more expensive cars, with all the little vibrations and feelings of the black, cue-ball shifter transmitted to our right hand. If you are one of the folks who’s concerned about daily driving this gearbox, you have nothing to worry about.
The 302 delivers a broad, manageable power curve, with a linear buildup of power as the revs climb. Even in sixth gear, dabbing in about half throttle will get you up to speed in surprisingly short order. Moreover, simply upshifting at a reasonable 3000 to 4000 rpm is enough to get to the speed limit faster than just about everybody else. The throttle response is pleasantly sharp, but in no way unmanageable. There is a decent feel through the accelerator pedal, allowing easy modulation of all 444 horsepower.
Acoustically, this engine sounds really great when accelerating. It’s arguably one of Ford’s best-sounding powerplants. It sounds as good accelerating as it does decelerating.
The Boss 302 Mustang does have a solid rear axle. In short, it was a non-factor, and here’s why. The benefit of using such a well-traveled (old) technology like a solid rear axle is that the decades upon decades have gone into perfecting it.
Vertical damping is well controlled, and there is no sense that the car was skipping over imperfections. Better still, the type of vertical float that typifies most Mustangs of this era is absent.
In short, many performance vehicles are not suitable for daily consumption. I’d argue that the Ford Mustang Boss 302 is not one of them.
So how does the Boss 302 shape up as a performance vehicle? Fan-freaking-tastic. It’s invigorating. Screw Red Bull, give me a Boss 302. Really, a genuinely stunning piece of engineering and design, the Boss 302 is an exceptional performance bargain for a multitude of reasons.
Even though its power peaks were stratospheric, it never feels flat-footed at lower revs. It climbs the tach fast, but it doesn’t feel unmanageable in the process. There is never a sense that it runs to redline so quickly that you’ll miss out on a shift and hit the rev limiter.
It goes without saying, that the higher the revs, the more thrust the Boss 302 has. It’s happier than a chocolate-addled preschooler above 5000 rpm, where the V-8 mill generated one of the sweetest exhaust notes you’ll ever experience on a Ford product. Plant a foot north of 5K, and the Boss really catapults forward.
standard GT, there was much less of a change in the way the steering communicated. Even in the most aggressive steering setup (Sport), it felt too light for a performance vehicle.
Overall balance is surprisingly neutral, with little in the way of any understeer. Gassing it out of a turn could cause the tail to step out, but the whole affair happens in such a predictable manner that it’s easily countered with the throttle and steering. Squat under acceleration is appropriate and tells you more about rear-end grip than anything.
The brakes, big Brembos up front, are quite impressive. If you must dive on the middle pedal hard, you’ll be impressed by the amount of feedback transmitted to your right foot. Front-end grip under braking was abundant, and the pedal itself allows you to modulate stopping power with a high degree of accuracy.
The Boss 302 is a Mustang like there’s never been. Not only is it pleasantly fast, but it also delivers the sort of handling confidence that Mustangs of the time never quite had. It elevates the Ford/Mustang nameplate from a mere muscle car to a full-fledged sports car.
This Boss features a "Lime Rock Park" gas cap medallion CNC machined out of 6061-T6 aluminum billet. The deck wing is the exact PN for a 2008 Roush TrakPack.
2013 Ford Mustang Boss 302
Engine: V-8, 5.0 liters, 32v
Output: 444 hp/380 lb-ft
Weight: 3632 lb
Fuel Economy, City/Hwy: 15/26 mpg
0-60 MPH: 4.2 sec (est)
Base Price: $42,200
Source: Driven
