Ford kills Boss engine for F-150, Mustang

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The tremendous pressure on the auto industry is rapidly unraveling even the most carefully laid out plans. Fuel economy is king right now, and trucks and SUVs have gone from cash cows to the 6,000-pound albatross around the necks of automakers. Ford has been giving us a steady flow of news regarding its plans to weather this wicked storm, including the decision to switch truck and SUV plants into facilities that can produce fuel efficient cars and the delayed launch of the 2009 F-150. Now we're hearing from Mike Levine at Pickuptrucks.com that the Blue Oval has all but killed the once promising Boss V8 engine program.

The powerful V8 engine was slated to appear on models ranging from the new Mustang to the best-selling F-150 and Super Dudy, but a stop work order has narrowed the Boss' available engine bays down to one model. Ford President of the Americas Mark Fields told Levine that while the program isn't being killed completely, it will now only appear on the Super Duty. Ford has already spent a load of cash on the beefy pushrod, so killing the program altogether would have been a tough pill to swallow, and Super Duty buyers expect V8 power anyway. Ford was also planning on more than one displacement for the Boss, but with it now only going in the Super Duty, it'll likely only appear in 6.2-liter guise.

Ford will likely move any and all monetary and development resources possible away from the Boss, and into the hands of greener projects like the US-bound Fiesta. The move makes abundant sense given the current realities Ford is facing, but it still saddens us that we won't get to mash the pedal to unleash 400 naturally aspirated ponies any time soon.

http://www.autoblog.com/