It’s been 42 years since Ford unleashed the Boss Mustang in the United States. There have been other great Mustangs since then–Shelby, Bullitt and Cobra among them–but the Boss mystique has entranced die-hard fans since its halycon days on the racetrack.
Their devotion has paid off: New to the U.S. market is the 2012 Ford Mustang Boss 302, a $41,105, 444-horsepower nostalgia machine that is the quickest, best-handling vehicle Ford makes.
The one I drove around New York last week looked primed for Halloween hi-jinx–burnished orange under black racing stripes with 19” rims and a matte grill. It attracted plenty of talk about its performance, price and general raison d’etre (“They brought it back?!”).
All for good reason. This is not some special trim package or re-jiggered GT. Jim Farley, Ford’s group VP of global marketing, said he’s been waiting two decades to launch the thing, and not without considerable excitement: “It should be a car that winds up on YouTube doing something illegal.”