Ford adds ‘burnout’ feature to all 2018 Mustangs

Ford pulled strangers off the street at Irwindale Speedway in 2017, handed them a new Mustang, and told them to make smoke. The occasion was line lock becoming standard on every 2018 Mustang, four-cylinder EcoBoost models included, not just the V8 GT. Here is exactly what the system does to the brakes, why drag racers have used the trick for decades, and the fifteen-second limit almost nobody mentions.

In the summer of 2017, Ford pulled complete strangers off the street outside a Southern California speedway, handed them the keys to a brand-new Mustang, and told them to go generate as much tire smoke as physically possible. Nobody got fired over it. That was the entire point of the exercise, and the man doing the recruiting was a Formula Drift champion who has built a career out of destroying rear tires on purpose. What Ford was announcing was not a stunt or a promotional giveaway but a piece of standard equipment, and the surprising part was which models were getting it. Not just the V8 cars. All of them.

⚑ Featured Gear

Start Car Conversations →

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Handing Keys to Strangers at Irwindale

The demonstration took place at Irwindale Speedway, a half-mile oval in Southern California with a long history of hosting exactly this kind of activity. Ford’s approach was deliberately unsubtle: recruit people with no performance driving background whatsoever, put them in a stock 2018 Mustang, walk them through the procedure, and film what happened. Formula Drift champion Vaughn Gittin Jr. handled the coaching. His summary of the reasoning was about as concise as automotive marketing gets, noting simply that burnouts never get old. The footage made the case better than a spec sheet ever could.

What Line Lock Actually Does to the Brakes

Electronic line lock is a simple idea executed with modern hardware. When engaged, the system applies and holds hydraulic pressure to the front brakes only, leaving the rear brakes released. With the fronts locked, the car cannot roll forward, but the rear tires are free to spin as fast as the driver’s right foot dictates. The result is a stationary burnout that heats the rear tires without dragging the car down the road. On the 2018 Mustang, activation happened through the dashboard controls, requiring no aftermarket parts, no special tool, and no second person to help.

A Drag Racing Trick That Predates the Feature

Drag racers have been doing this manually since long before any of it was electronic, using a dedicated solenoid valve plumbed into the front brake circuit and triggered by a button on the shifter or the steering wheel. The purpose has never been showmanship, at least not primarily. Heat is what makes a drag radial or a slick stick, and a cold tire simply will not hook on a prepped surface. Spinning the rears in the water box brings the compound up to temperature and cleans debris off the contact patch. Ford’s contribution was making a proven racing procedure available without a trip to a fabricator.

Why the Four-Cylinder Got It Too

The genuinely notable decision was extending the feature across the entire lineup rather than reserving it for the GT. Line lock had been a Mustang GT item since the 2015 model year, positioned as a V8 owner’s perk. Making it standard for 2018 meant the 2.3-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder got it as well, which some purists found faintly ridiculous. The counterargument is straightforward: an EcoBoost Mustang with a decent set of rear tires makes more than enough torque to light them up, and a four-cylinder owner heading to a Friday night bracket race needs heated tires exactly as much as a V8 owner does.

Ten Speeds, Six Speeds, Same Button

For 2018 the Mustang’s transmission choices shifted significantly, and line lock worked with both of them. Ford replaced the previous six-speed automatic with a new 10-speed SelectShift unit developed jointly with General Motors, while the Getrag six-speed manual carried forward for buyers who wanted a third pedal. The line lock function was not tied to either one. That mattered more than it sounds, since some competing traction and launch features of the era were automatic-only, effectively penalizing manual buyers for choosing the more involving transmission.

The Fifteen-Second Limit Nobody Talks About

There is a limitation built into the system that gets far less attention than the feature itself. Ford caps each line lock activation at roughly fifteen seconds, after which the system releases automatically. This is not Ford being cautious for its own sake. Sustained high-rpm wheelspin generates enormous heat in the tires, the driveline, and the rear brakes that are sitting still while everything around them cooks. Fifteen seconds is more than sufficient to prepare tires for a run and short enough to prevent the kind of extended abuse that turns a differential into an expensive paperweight.

Vaughn Gittin Jr. and the Case for Silliness

Choosing Gittin as the front man was consistent with how Ford positioned the car generally. He is a genuine Formula Drift champion with an actual competition record, not a hired personality, and his involvement with Ford performance products has been long-running and public. Putting him in charge of teaching novices to do burnouts framed the feature as legitimate performance hardware rather than a gimmick, while still acknowledging that the whole thing is supposed to be fun. That balance is difficult to strike in automotive marketing, and the Irwindale footage largely managed it.

What 2018 Changed Beyond the Burnouts

The 2018 refresh went well beyond a burnout button. Ford dropped the 3.7-liter V6 from the lineup entirely, leaving the turbocharged four and the 5.0-liter Coyote V8 as the only choices. The V8 gained direct injection alongside its port injection and climbed to 460 horsepower and 420 lb-ft. The EcoBoost’s torque figure rose to 350 lb-ft, meaningfully improving mid-range response. Add the new 10-speed automatic, available MagneRide dampers, and revised styling, and the 2018 car was a substantially different machine from the 2017 it replaced.

Standard Equipment as a Statement of Intent

Making line lock standard equipment across every Mustang was a small decision with a clear message behind it. Ford was declaring that the entire range, four-cylinder cars included, belonged at a drag strip if the owner wanted to take it there. Plenty of manufacturers talk about performance heritage in press releases. Fewer put a factory-engineered tire-heating system in the base model and tell first-time owners to go use it. That is a meaningfully different posture, and it is part of why the S550 generation earned the following it did. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter