Logan K. Carter/ Jalopnik
Some cars can carry a stigma along with them, and the Ford Mustang is one of those cars. It's one of the most widely known cars on the road, so when you say you drive a Mustang, odds are no matter who you're talking to, they will have some sort of opinion and preconceived notion. In particular, when you tell car enthusiasts that you drive a Mustang, they're liable to park their cars as far away from you as possible, preferably separated by some K-rail or other physical barrier, because there's no telling if you'll make it out of the parking lot without crashing. Tell them you drive an EcoBoost Mustang, and they're likely to just scoff and walk away. When I told my friends that I was getting an EcoBoost Mustang convertible, they said I'd blend in with all the tourists who rent them for their first trip to LA.
The Mustang driver jokes never end, but as with many automotive stereotypes, I think the driver is the one who gets the last laugh. I loved my week with the Mustang EcoBoost convertible, and my friends ended up appreciating it, too.
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Full disclosure: Ford lent me a Mustang EcoBoost Premium Convertible for a week so I could live with it as my daily driver and review it. My press car was a 2025 model, but exceedingly few changes were made to the Mustang lineup for 2026, so this should apply to 2026 Mustangs, too.
The numbers aren't super impressive, but it's not a numbers car
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My press car was a 2025 Mustang EcoBoost Convertible Premium, which starts at $44,640 including $1,595 for destination, but my car had a whopping $7,265 in optional extras, so the final price was $51,905. A similarly specced 2026 Mustang EcoBoost Convertible Premium would cost about the same as my 2025 press car, but Ford has yet to announce 2027 Mustang pricing details.
Naturally, my press car was powered by the standard turbocharged 2.3-liter inline-4 engine that produces 310 horsepower and 350 pound-feet of torque, sent to the rear wheels through the standard 10-speed automatic transmission. Ford says Mustang EcoBoost Convertibles weigh a somewhat porky 3,741 pounds, and in Edmunds' testing, one proved capable of a quick 0-to-60 time of 5.4 seconds.
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The extra-cost options included the $3,000 Equipment Group 201A, which adds leather seats, a curved display, aluminum pedals, a memory driver's seat, heated mirrors, a heated leather-wrapped steering wheel, a perimeter alarm, and Ford's Co-Pilot360 Assist+ that brings a full suite of active safety features like adaptive cruise control with lane-centering and blind spot assist. It also had the $1,450 20-inch aluminum wheels, the $1,225 active performance exhaust, the $995 12-speaker B&O sound system, $395 Grabber Blue Metallic paint, and $200 premium floor liners with mats. It seems like there's a lot of nickel-and-diming that goes on over at Ford, but I appreciated all the extra-cost features — except for the performance exhaust, which made the EcoBoost engine sound like it had some alarming flatulence at low revs.
As spec'd, my press car had lots of desirable features, and the interior actually felt higher quality than I anticipated. The center console that was simply a giant layer of hard plastic on older Mustangs was covered in a soft-touch material, which helped elevate the vibe a bit. I wouldn't describe the interior as being especially luxurious, but it didn't feel like an economy car either. Still, there were some oddities to it. I was shocked to see that, in the model-year-of-our-lord 2025, my Mustang convertible still had a manual roof latch. My 2005 Saab 9-3 cabriolet had a fully electronic roof mechanism 20 years prior, and the R129 Mercedes-Benz SL had a fully automatic roof in 1989, for goodness' sake. The manual latch isn't especially hard to use, but I did not expect to see one on a $50,000 car in 2026.
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Despite the horror of having a manual latch, the Mustang EcoBoost convertible is a rarity in the modern automotive market as a relatively affordable four-seat convertible. Its only real competitor is the equally retro Mini Cooper S Convertible, which starts just under $40,000, since the only other four-seat convertibles on the market are the BMW 4 Series convertible and the Mercedes-Benz CLE cabriolet that both start closer to $70,000.
It's a Mustang after all, not a Miata
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The biggest argument against the Mustang EcoBoost convertible is the excellent Mazda MX-5 Miata, which is objectively a better choice if you value pure driving dynamics, but it poses other shortcomings, like the fact that I simply do not fit in one. I'm 6-foot-8 and carry most of my height in my legs, so squeezing behind the wheel of the diminutive Miata results in my right knee getting wedged between the steering wheel and transmission tunnel, rendering it undrivable. The Mustang, in contrast, had ample leg room and front cabin space overall, so it's a great choice for my fellow Large People.
For folks who aren't in the 99.9th percentile, the Mustang still has two more seats than the Miata, and over twice the trunk space with 11.4 cubic feet, so it offers a fair bit more practicality. I even drove down Pacific Coast Highway with two friends, which meant one had to sit in the rear seat, and they said it was actually reasonably comfortable once the front passenger scooted their seat forward a bit. Sitting behind my driving position was not recommended for anyone with legs, though.
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The Mustang EcoBoost is a big heavy American car after all, so it wasn't especially adept at canyon carving. It held its own when driving at about eight-tenths, but pushing it harder than that resulted in some unsatisfying understeer and intense stability control intervention. My press car was not fitted with the optional Performance Package, so it lacked paddle shifters or any other way to control your own selection of the 10 available gears, not even a +/- mode for the shift lever which was a bummer. The transmission has an "L" mode, though, that held onto gears pretty nicely and was the best setting to engage for zesty driving.
That's not to say I didn't have fun finding the Mustang's limits, because I definitely did. It was almost like dancing with someone who's really hot but maybe not the best dancer; you still have fun, and you're happy to be seen dancing with them, but they may step on your toes or lose the beat every now and then.
Daily driving is where the Mustang shines
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In the more sedate setting of daily driving, the Mustang EcoBoost settled into a much more relaxed stride, but it's sometimes a bit too relaxed depending on your driving style. In Normal mode, the drivetrain did not behave like it was in a performance-focused car. The transmission was quick to upshift, leaving the four-cylinder starved of boost unless I really dug deep into the throttle, but for most traffic conditions it was plenty sufficient.
I don't know if it was just me or if it was the car egging me on, but being behind the Mustang's delightful steering wheel made me want to drive like a dick. I'd drop the transmission into L a few times every time I drove the car, since it gave me quicker access to the EcoBoost's boost. Drive the car in Normal mode and the Mustang is a comfortable convertible cruiser, but being the driving enthusiast that I am, I preferred the drivetrain's rowdier demeanor in Sport mode.
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Though it never felt like it was an outright sports car, the Mustang's split personalities allowed me to be a hooligan when I felt like it, or nip that tendency in the bud. Be warned, though. If you drive around in Sport and leave the transmission in L mode, you will pay the price at the pump. I got around 20 mpg during my week with the car. If you keep things more chill, you should get reasonable fuel economy, with EPA ratings of 22 mpg in the city, 33 mpg on the highway, and 26 mpg combined.
Selectively tech heavy
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There was a weird array of technology in my press car;. I was disappointed to see that the climate controls were entirely integrated into the 13.2-inch infotainment touchscreen, and yet there was no surround-view camera, or even a front-facing camera that would have been a welcome addition given how long the Mustang's hood is. At least the most frequently used climate controls remained present at the bottom of the screen for easy access, but the infotainment occasionally took a moment to boot up when I first started the car, which led to some moments of panic during LA's heatwave when I got into the car and had to wait for the system to turn on. Once the system was up and running, it was responsive, well-organized, and simple to navigate.
The Mustang had one of my favorite traits in a car: character. The exterior design is unmistakably Mustang, and the interior has some deliciously retro touches — my absolute favorite feature was the selectable designs for the gauges. I grew up squeezed into the back seat of my dad's 1986 Mustang SVO, so seeing the Fox Body gauges felt like home. I expected them to be glitchy or hokey, but each of the three throwback gauge designs were remarkably convincing and high-definition, from the classic '67-to-'68 gauges to the Fox Body gauges to the '99-to-'01 SVT Cobra gauges.
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Two features that stood out on my press car during my loan were the 12-speaker B&O stereo and the driver-assistance features. The sound system was powerful enough to remain crisp and clear even with the top down, and the adaptive cruise control was a boon for navigating LA traffic. The chunky physical buttons on the steering wheel aided in effortless operation of both the stereo and the ADAS features, too.
The Mustang EcoBoost convertible is a dying breed
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Four-seat convertibles are a rarity on the automotive market right now, and affordable ones are even more rare. This realization saddened me, because I remember when every car company seemed to have their own take on the four-seat convertible, from Chrysler to Toyota to Volkswagen. Now there's really just the Mustang and the Mini. Fortunately for anyone in the market for an affordable four-seat convertible, they're both characterful cars that are able to offer some driving enjoyment.
The Ford Mustang EcoBoost convertible is peppy without being overpowered, it can be efficient if you meter your right foot, and it can be affordable if you refrain from ticking too many option boxes. It's not a perfect car, but it's one that prioritizes fun, whether your definition of fun is simply cruising the coast with the top down or it's hurrying down your favorite canyon road.
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If you want a more performance-oriented Mustang, go for a fixed-roof coupe or one of the V8 models, but if you're on a budget and still want to inject your life with some epic moments that make you feel like you're in a movie montage, the droptop Mustang EcoBoost is a great choice.