Report: New Windsor V8 Coming to Next-Gen Mustang
Photo: Ford
Last month, Ford Motor Company of Canada and Unifor ratified a new three-year deal ensuring the future of Oakville Assembly Complex and Windsor Engine. A new 6.X-liter engine program at Windsor is among the wins for Unifor, and a whirlwind of speculation suggests that will result in a massive V8 for the next-generation Ford Mustang.
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While announcing the terms of the agreement in October, Unifor President Jerry Dias suggested that the new Windsor V8 would be a 6.8-liter for the next-gen F-150 and Mustang. Ford has since offered the ol’ line about not speculating on future products, but that hasn’t stopped others from guessing as to what’s in store.
Hagerty posits that the engine in question will be a “de-stroked 7.3 Godzilla.” This suggests it will bear some similarities to the massive 7.3-liter pushrod V8 introduced on the 2020 Super Duty. Hagerty’s Sajeev Mehta does suggest that the 6.8-liter V8 Windsor produces would forego the 7.3-liter’s iron block in favor of aluminum construction. He also anticipates that the new Windsor V8 will adopt an overhead-valve setup rather than overhead cams.
Next-gen Mustang still a ways off
If the Windsor 6.X-liter engine is indeed a V8 intended for the Mustang, we’ll likely have a bit more than a year or so to wait and find out. Ford will stick with its current-generation Mustang at least until 2022, stretching the program to eight years. The seventh-generation Mustang would follow suit with an eight-year life cycle.
Will the 6.8-liter V8 drop in the next-gen F-150 Raptor? It’s more widely believed that that truck will get the Shelby GT500’s 5.2-liter supercharged V8. This would give the new F-150 Raptor output somewhere around 725 horsepower, helping Ford stave off the new Ram TRX. Ford should also offer the F-150 Raptor with a high-powered version of its PowerBoost V6. The supercharged V8 truck would be a limited offering likely to sell out quickly.
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Kyle S. Johnson lives in Cincinnati, a city known by many as “the Cincinnati of Southwest Ohio.” He enjoys professional wrestling, Halloween, and also other things. He has been writing for a while, and he plans to continue to write well into the future. See more articles by Kyle.