The New Mustang Premium Edition Review: A Closer Look at Ford's Latest Offering

The new Mustang Premium Edition is here, and it's a beast of a car. It's not a huge departure from its predecessor, but there are some notable changes that set it apart. One of the first things you'll notice is the visor test screen, which seems to be stuck on repeat. "Just like the EcoBoost cup holders pass too," our reviewer says with a chuckle. This small quirk sets the tone for what's to come – a car that's not afraid to poke fun at itself.

As we take a closer look at the Premium Edition, it becomes clear that this is very much a 2022 Mustang. The materials on board seem a bit better than before, and the infotainment system is one big panel with two screens in it. But don't worry – you can also get a separate screen for your phone charger, which heats up your device nicely. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto work seamlessly, although our reviewer notes that they've had to click on them a few times to get them to work.

One of the standout features of the Premium Edition is its customization options. With Unreal Engine, you can spin things around, change colors, and even add in some fancy graphics like Fox Body gauges. It's all very smooth and fluid, making for an immersive experience that's hard to put down. The Drive modes are also impressive, with a range of options to suit every driving style.

However, customization can be a bit tricky. When you try to tailor your drive mode to your liking, you're forced to choose a base mode first – which can feel a bit limiting. But on the plus side, you can always adjust your rev match from the steering wheel, and there's also driving assist features like Lane Centering and Adaptive Cruise Control. These may not be as advanced as some of its rivals, but they get the job done.

One of the biggest surprises is the climate control system – or rather, the lack thereof. When you remove heated and cooled seats, it actually doesn't feel like a loss. The buttons are discreetly placed, and you're left with a clean and uncluttered look that's hard to fault. Down below, though, we do find some hard buttons for Auto Stop/Start and other functions.

Finally, there's the matter of price. The GT starts at $42,495 American, while the Premium Edition is specked out to around $56,635. Not bad, considering what you get. But then there's the Dark Horse – which starts at an eye-watering $59,270. Is it worth it? Only time will tell.

In terms of spec, the Dark Horse seems like a solid choice for anyone who wants the works without breaking the bank. With MagneRide and other features already built-in, it feels like a more comprehensive package than the standard GT. But then there's the matter of design – or rather, the lack thereof. The Dark Horse looks suspiciously like a regular GT with some minor tweaks. Is this the sort of car you want? Only Ford knows.

As we wrap up our review, one thing's for sure: the new Mustang Premium Edition is a great car that won't disappoint anyone who wants to take it out for a spin. It may not be revolutionary, but it's certainly worthy of your attention. And who knows – with some tweaks and upgrades, this could just become the perfect Mustang yet.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign Mustang GT with launch control oh yeah pretty good still pretty decently fast horsepower and torque 486 horsepower 418 pound-feated Torque from a 5 liter V8 new Mustang only comes manual in the V8 yes that's right you can't get it in the EcoBoost that we drove yesterday but you can also get the 10-speed Auto in this V8 yep and you can get the drift brake which we talked about in our EcoBoost review so definitely watch that video as well for more detail on the drift break okay here's my theory of the new 7th gen Mustang go for it it is pretty much the same feeling as the old Mustang however a lot pointier sharper looks that kind of sometimes looks from like a Camaro and then turns into a Mustang when you get to the front slightly disagree with you I do feel that it is better than the last gen in terms of feel driving and all a bunch of little things and yes the biggest thing would be the looks though okay so what does feel the same power delivery like come on so this engine has been retweaked and yes now we have dual throttle bodies and they come in the air comes in through the nostrils in the grill yes and the exhaust manifold has been changed as well as the oil pan other than that I believe it's the same engine as the last generation so they kind of just massaged it and they give you basically like bullet horsepower from the previous generation slightly kind of like Mach 1 specs but the Mach 1 of this generation is equivalent to the Dark Horse which sits above the GT and have more handling and stuff and a bit more power yes I bet you they just redid it so that the motor will be something that they can work from for the next 14 years because it's probably going to be around for like a while as the last V8 exactly because the Camaro and Challenger are dead the Camaro is only half dead it lives through this car okay let's let's get to how it lives through this car the rear shoulders on this car yeah okay certain but okay they look camaroy but they wanted to make the whole Mustang Point here we talked to the designer it's like we wanted to make it sharper and pointier and like edgier everywhere and that it does look cool and it does look Mustang yes and the GT does look much cooler than the EcoBoost although the EcoBoost does look really clean and simple especially on the front end yeah you get some heat extractors in the hood for the GT and then you also get slightly different like Grill and everything it's just slightly different shapes it looks more muscly yeah yeah more muscly speaking of muscley they told us that the intakes kind of the Scoops in the grill are representative of a bodybuilder lifting weights not the scoops of the grill the part that goes around and up yes on the sides around the into Grill yeah so it's a bodybuilder lifting weights yeah which I mean it kind of does look like that once they tell you that and then these are my favorite wheels of all the Mustangs of this gen so far they're like a cool five spoke star yeah I really like these wheels that they look great in person it will be the Continental recommended tire for the new Mustang GT the Continental extreme contact sport O2 all right yo how's the handling how's the power through these I don't know somewhere in California roads uh it is great now it is noticeably heavier in the front end compared to the EcoBoost I kind of liked how Nimble the front end felt on that but this does feel great we do have the magneride dampers which are optional on this one and then we also have automatic rev matching which currently I'm leaving on although the heel toe position on the pedals is actually really really good and we do still have this Mt 82 from the last generation I know it's not everybody's favorite it is not my favorite unfortunately the Tremec only gets carried over into the Dark Horse although I do like this with the shifter style compared to the Challenger that we just had the 392. and we have a hard button we can program a start button to do your auto rev match on and on having this customizable button is really really nice you can set it to launch control on a bunch of things but having it for rev match is kind of perfect because now I can just turn it off heel toe nail it and then send it and this car does pull like the power is very appropriate feels better than the 392 last call it's challenging exactly because it doesn't have all that extra weight uh this does also have a better steering ratio than the previous generation and it is noticeably different especially in the EcoBoost with that lighter front end and then we also have the GT performance pack on here so we have like a torsion rear diff with a better axle ratio and overall I mean this thing does feel great it you get a bunch of different suspension components and stuff that are updated on this package so like I like driving this especially out here how much more do you like it than like a last gen GT for driving because we're driving I feel like it's like a little better I it's an it's a very noticeable difference it has turns but for power it's very similar man we don't have that many turns in Toronto yeah so like we don't do much turning no but noticeably out here oh here yeah yeah it's like it is a very nice difference and I think they did a great job with the chassis on this generation like yes they said that they had a bunch of hard points and things that they couldn't change so it's kind of like a generation 6.5 realistically but the changes are enough to differentiate this for me I think the Gap in looks I think is the biggest thing that moved it to a new Full gen what it would have been sick is modeling it after the fox body and doing a retro Fox body so like if 2005 was based off of Fox Body instead of uh 67 exactly so maybe we'll get that with the 8th gen hopefully because we do have Fox body gauges in here which are super sick and I have a fox body shout out my fox buddy on my shirt and by the way we do actually sell these shirts I think still on our store so if you do want to buy one of them take them off the store we don't we don't sell shirts we're not a shirt selling thing so then this also has cool features like line lock which we had the Ford guy test out for us we haven't had a chance to test it out but if we do we're going to insert that now but at the time he could not get it to roll out of a burnout yeah so it was weird locks you into like a 15 second burnout and then you couldn't he couldn't roll through so in order to turn on line lock you hold the OK button and then you press ok to engage now it's engaged if you're doing a burnout to drive through it all you do is press ok to cancel boom drive through it that's how easy it is and then this electric handbrake it is the same one as on the EcoBoost but unlike the EcoBoost if you get an automatic without that handbrake you still get paddles on the steering wheel and it took me a little while to wrap my head around exactly what's happening with this so when you treat it like a normal handbrake and you're parking this car it's basically the equivalent of an electronic flick up finger break because you could just tap this up you don't have to like rip it up because it doesn't stay up and then put it down down you push it down or you drive through it yeah like an electronic one the weirdest part for me is pushing a handbrake down because that doesn't exist in real life so I've wrapped my head around it and I've already gotten used to it and it is not a point of contention for me it's totally fine yeah and we did do a couple uh hand they said it was a drift section on the Press trip but it was really just two handbrake turns yes with a little bit of a four-cylinder yeah yeah yeah it's definitely not drifting no and in the marketing they're like practice your reverse entries with that e-brake it's our handbrake it's like okay you're not doing reverse entries no there's no angle kit on here you couldn't pull through even though they got a drift team who like helped set it up but it's like yeah they yeah RTR has fully designed this with Ford so we had Chelsea denofo out here but we weren't able to like properly do anything with yeah we couldn't like link turns because that wasn't yeah but anyways I think it is time to get you into the driver's seat although I do really enjoy my time behind the wheel okay you can use the straight pipes money to buy one on tsp.truecar.com oh I can yeah it's got to be an orange though do they have orange new color or no uh without even driving the Dark Horse I think I would have to go with the Dark Horse although this is really good it just has the Tremec transmission if the new Mustang's not up on tsb.truecard.com yet it will be soon you kind of just need to wait for dealer inventory to catch up because these videos come out early all right let me just take the e-brake off uh yeah push it down we put it back up let's let's show the people how it's done it feels that fails good all right a lot of good torque still from really down low and third when I shoot down get the shift lights sounds pretty good from in here let's take a listen to the outside and we've got the optional sport exhaust so that was full volume in race mode or track mode and you'll know it's the louder exhaust because they'll have the double duels instead of the single dual yes and what about the automatic transmission yeah if you're an automatic transmission with this or the EcoBoost and you got the performance exhaust on it if you have the car started or started if you click lock and unlock it'll rev a bit after it gets the proper temperature remotely and then if you click it again it'll go all right you literally have remote revving from the key fob remote being a piece of trash in real life yeah I mean shout out Ford for knowing their customer base like myself all I do is Rev the balls off my Mustang but it doesn't work on a manual even if you're in neutral which is kind of disappointing but probably makes sense definitely a safety thing but I mean it does sound really good from in here and outside it's like it's got that characteristic kind of Mustang Rumble it's it's still there so it sounds like a coyote and now that I've spent a bit more time in these twisty roads like this the steering feels much different than previous Mustang that's what I'm saying much much different much better but the power does feel very similar still because it is basically the same power so you do get six less horsepower without the performance exhaust so it's not actually coming from those twin intakes found a nice spot for our launch control foreign yeah so you can actually set your launch RPM Target we've got a pretty low at four thousand I feel like I said it's a six I feel like it's bogging down and honestly we should probably set it to six uh that would be my recommendation without even trying it and it does have a drag strip mode and timers and stuff which is sick and we have been spending most of our time in the canyons in track mode for the suspension and for everything and it's actually really good out here I did kind of experiment with sport mode as well it's softened up just a little bit and normal and all that stuff on the public Streets back in the city it's still kind of stiff with the magneride I wish there was more of a difference between normal and track yeah they're all very firm but it still feels all right and yeah okay look when I'm steering with these seats like see on my elbows yeah I don't know if that happens with a lot of other people it didn't happen with you right so I got like my wider frame with my muscles I gotta tuck my arms in I think and that's a weird thing for me about DC's these are the recaros yeah they are very comfortable very bolstered which is really nice out here yeah but I think I'm fine with like the norm normal seats as well and with the normal seats you also get cooled seats as soon as you get recorded yes they're deleted and they're also not heated either and then you can get some cool colors like there's an orange interior you said looked ugly which to me looks like awesome I love ugly Ember glow which isn't quite normal it's more of like a rust yeah and then uh there's a bunch of cool interiors that you can get and there's a bunch of cool paint color you can get like the Grabber blue looked really good I think these definitely look better in non-metallic colors because it accentuates the dark grills more right but then the metallic kind of accentuates the shapes that they like the hard lines especially like for the Camaro esque especially in this blue color that we have and then the Dark Horse with like the blue colors it's it's hard to see all the like the weird lines like how it looks like it's drawn like the base Camaro like the line of thing I like the way the dark horses look in lighter colors like the white ones or whatever yeah with their uh bags under the eyes or whatever yeah yeah yeah I painted on mask or something yeah they just look tired yeah a darker looks like anyways okay we got a cool little wing back there too which reminds me of lot of the Corvette Wing oh yes yeah and I've seen some that are black on the red and you can do a free Wing delete which I would actually recommend because it looks really nice and sharp without a wing but this Wing is great probably one of the best Mustang Wings yeah it's clean because yeah it's so subtle and then just like the EcoBoost really really awesome tail lights like I love the taillights on this yeah so pointy so sharp it's a great looking car in person and then since this one doesn't have the blacked out package we've got the little Chrome things in the headlight so it always looks like there's headlights on as opposed to the yellow one we had which had the blackout package yes and then there's also a bronze package which then you get bronze wheels and bronze accents I think even the pony is bronze yeah but we don't have that one no and then more stuff inside normal floor mats would probably be cooler with a set of talks matte definitely get a set of tux Mac go to tuxmat.com straight pipes I'm sure they'll have the new Mustang very soon or maybe even the old mats will fit because maybe it hasn't been changed it's not gonna fit all right visor test three two one full pass just like the EcoBoost cup holders pass too and you're like Caboose this is the same pretty much the exact same elbow armrest glove box compartment thingy as the previous generation as well because it looks very similar and then we have a fake carbon fiber shifter surround we got fake carbon fiber up here it does look pretty good the materials on this Premium Edition seem a little bit better and the infotainment is one big panel with two screens in it but you can also get one that looks like two different ones and it's pretty much exactly the same as the EcoBoost which is cool if you're in the EcoBoost because you're getting the same stuff that you get into GT it's not like you're getting a worse version exactly Unreal Engine so it makes everything nice and fluid and smooth and you can spin stuff around you can change the colors change the glitch cluster modes you can have Fox body gauges we mentioned a lot in the EcoBoost review so definitely go watch that for more details yes and this has all the same Drive modes that the EcoBoost also has but custom Drive modes are very weird like when you try to customize something you have to pick a base drive mode and that kind of locks you into the engine and steering and the suspension suspension of that mode then you can really just customize exhaust traction it's not like the most intuitive but you can change your drive modes from the steering wheel which is nice hard buttons yeah and then you can also change your rev match in a separate menu which would have been nice if they tied that to the custom mode just like Porsche does and then this also does have driving assist too like we got Lane centering and like adaptive cruise so that's pretty cool haven't used it out here nope not at all and then we got a little tray for your phone charger which heats up your phone pretty good Wireless or wired Apple carplay Android auto and the Apple carplay works great we always have it up in the top right to click but I feel like we've missed it a couple times we've hit it and like had to click it like three times to get it to work yeah so uh it's just touch screen things you know and then our climate is also buried in here we're not buried it's always at the bottom but it is in the screen and what's cool is when they remove the heated and cooled seats it actually doesn't look like you're missing a button or an option it's just gone wow that's what they did that's how that's how they get you with no hard buttons and then down here we do have some hard buttons we do have one blank button which is for the Auto Stop start which I guess is for the automatic maybe that new Engine Tuning means they don't have to have an auto start stop button on here to get fuel standards maybe and then this whole panel just kind of moves back and forth when you press all these buttons yeah I mean overall I like it they didn't screw it up if you do take turns I would highly recommend the newer version go to tsp.truecar.com but if you don't take turns I think you'll have a lot of fun still with the last gen Mustang I'll totally agree with that statement but can you afford it I think it's time we get to the price hit me with it the GT starts at 42.495 American and this one is specked out to approximately 56 635 dollars I think that's an okay deal now the crazy part is the Dark Horse still starts at 59 270. yo I would go base Dark Horse overloaded this because with the Dark Horse you get certain things already built into it so you get magnaride you get things like that and I'm just basing this off my experience with the Mach 1 which was like the only 5 liter Mustang that I actually really liked yeah we loved I loved the Mach 1 obviously a GT350 or an R is more preferable just because that engine is so special but the Mach 1 of the previous generation was fantastic we called that car perfect or nearly perfect and this is getting pretty close so the Dark Horse is probably pretty close to perfect as well except I'm not the fondest of the Dark Horse looks exactly like if it was dark horse stuff in the EcoBoost With No Wings you know what I mean I like that clean look and I wonder if there's going to be a Shelby of some kind in this generation like GT350 GT3 500 dt800 who knows GT1 exactly so let us know what you guys think of the new Mustang do you like the looks do you wish for more power what do you want out of this thing we still got a V8 so just celebrate that see you later\n"