NAPA VALLEY, California — Before it ditched cars for a lineup of engaging SUVs and trucks like F-150 Raptors, Bronco Sport Sasquatches and Maverick Lobos, Ford made affordable hellions like the Focus RS that you could take big game-hunting with 300-plus turbo-4 horsepower, nimble handling, and drift mode. The Focus RS exited the market in 2018.

It’s been reincarnated in the 2027 Ford Mustang RTR.

Delivered by Formula Drift Racing legend Vaughn Gittin Jr. and his Ready to Rock team, Mustang RTR is the love child of the Focus RS and a Mustang GT. It is a tantalizing, teething, tempestuous, tail-wagging terror.

Over the heaving, 2.0-mile twists-and-turns of Thunderhill West race track (a desert version of Grattan Raceway near Grand Rapids), RTR was, to use Gittin’s favorite term, a fun-haver. In TRACK mode, I crested blind Turn 6 at 90 mph — managing throttle while the turbo stayed spooled up using anti-lag technology from the Ford GT (yeah, that 2016 GT). I stomped the Brembo brakes and flung RTR into Turn 7, a hard, 30-degree hairpin.

Rotating the coupe with throttle, I exited under a controlled drift before unleashing 315 ponies on Turn 8. Want to dial up the fun factor? Pull the drift brake, spin the car on a dime and smoke the rears.

Anti-lag tech? Brembo brakes? Turbo-4? Drift brake? Mustang? Payne, what kind of Frankenstein Ford is this?

The fun kind.

“No more boring cars,” Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley said — then handed the keys to fun-havers like Gittin. The result is the most fun you’ve had in a Ford four-banger since, well, the Focus RS.

Poetically, RS was developed with the help of Gittin Jr.’s late, great hoonigan pal Ken Block. Block’s purpose was to apply his experience in 1,000-horsepower drift beasts like the Mustang Hoonicorn (made by RTR) to a production car that the average Joe can enjoy. So too, Gittin and Mustang RTR.

“Where we are today — which is, frankly, a dream of mine — is working with Ford and leveraging their abilities in efficient engineering, manufacturing, more volume to build collaboration vehicles that are at an attainable price point,” said Gittin, who races a 1,400-horsepower, nitro-guzzling Mustang.

With full access to Ford’s toolbox, Gittin and his elves went to work.

Up front is a similar, 315-horse 2.3-liter turbo-four that once powered the Focus RS (and RTR predecessor Mustang HiPo). Unlike the front-wheel-drive-biased, all-wheel-drive Focus, RTR’s engine is longitudinally-mounted to drive Mustang’s rear wheels. In order to perform insane drift tricks like pirouetting around pylons like Ilia Malinin, Focus RS had to add high-tech, twin clutch packs in the rear to throw torque from one wheel to the other.

Mustang’s solution is simpler. Gittin and Co. upgraded the emergency brake by adding a second caliper on the rear rotor.

It makes drifting easier (instead of mastering the Scandinavian Flick) on track or in your local parking lot. I did my best Malinin spin ‘round a skid pad cone at Thunderhill. Try it — it’s addictive fun:

—Accelerate towards the cone, lift off throttle and initiate turn in.

—Pull the handbrake hard.

—Maintain rotation with the steering wheel.

—Apply throttle and do donuts.

Mustang RTR also diverges from Focus RS in not offering a manual transmission. Sigh. This is the part of the review where I add #SaveTheManuals and point out that the Civic Type R only comes with a manual. But there was no manual available to Gittin in the toolbox because Mustang no longer offers its turbo-4 with a stick.

Why? Because only 10% of sixth-gen Mustang buyers opted for a manual, and just 27% of V8-powered GT buyers. Heck, only 30% of RTR’s after-market, steroid-fed Mustang Spec models sell with a stick. Want a manual turbo-4? Buy a used HiPo, the RTR’s superb sixth-gen predecessor.

When the need for speed calls, RTR brings some serious hammers from big brother Dark Horse V-8’s toolbox.

To hug the road through a series of Sage Canyon Road switchbacks, my ‘Stang was armed with Dark Horse stabilizer bars and rear subframe to assist Goodyear Eagle F1 summer tires. Short of eliminating suspension bushings altogether (like the rock-hard Porsche 911 GT3), the firm Dark Horse bushings translate well to li’l brother.

To further read the road, RTR also digs into the Dark Horse toolbox for $1,850 magnetic shock absorbers — a game-changing technology for V8-powered gorillas like the Dark Horse SC and Corvette ZR1.

But the focus of the RTR is affordable fun.

With its lighter turbo-4 up front making for near-perfect 51-49 weight balance (compared to the 60-40 V-8s), RTR doesn’t need magnetic damper magic.

The new-for-2026 $43,695 RTR and big brother $105k Dark Horse SC showcase the seventh-gen pony car’s dexterity. I tested the stablemates — their base prices covering a model spread that would make BMW jealous — back-to-back on-track and they are completely different animals. Glued to the earth by magnetic dampers, the 795-horse SC inhales asphalt like a killer whale consumes plankton.

With four less cylinders and 6,000 fewer pounds, RTR can be thrown about like a Focus RS — or BMW 240i.

RTR’s secret sauce is its base price — $6,000 cheaper than the $51K 2018 Focus RS (inflation-adjusted) and right on top of a Golf R or Civic Type R hot hatch. For $43,695, which is how I’d spec it, it’s competitive bandwidth includes the aforementioned Bimmer.

In addition to its performance tools and tasteful, BMW-like interior with over 25 inches of hoodless digital screens, the RTR comes standard with blind-spot assist, adaptive cruise control and auto emergency braking. Configure a turbo-4-powered BMW 230i to match the ‘Stang and it will cost you a whopping 10 grand more.

How would I spec RTR?

I’d go stealth: black wheels and paint with only the signature, lit RTR nostrils and green calipers as I snuck up on a Bimmer in QUIET mode at a stoplight in rural Unadilla. Then I’d push TRACK mode as the light changed. Game on.

Others will take showman Gittin Jr. as their muse and configure RTR in Orange Fury Metallic with Hyper Lime Appearance Package. You can see it from space.

Either way, affordable fun lives at Ford. The Mustang RTR has been possessed by the Focus RS’s ghost.

2026 Ford Mustang RTR

Vehicle type: Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, four-passenger sports car

Price: $43,695 base, including $1,995 destination ($53,440 as tested)

Power plant: 2.3-liter turbocharged inline-4 cylinder

Power: 315 horsepower, 350 pound-feet of torque

Transmission: 10-speed automatic with shift paddles

Performance: 0-60 mph, 4.5 seconds (Motor Trend est.)

Weight: 3,783 pounds

Fuel economy: EPA est. 22 mpg city, 33 mpg highway, 26 mpg combined; range, 528 miles

Report card

Highs: Affordable pony; drift brake toy

Lows: Have to take legs off to get in backseat; manual, please

Overall: 4 stars

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