Fox Body 'Stang (Part 1)

 

What says, "Blue Blood, American Muscle" better than a Mustang?  Since their initial re-conception as a high performance car, the Mustang has always had a powerful V8, a stick, a fairly light curb weight, and a live axle out back making it really fun to corner sideways at high speed.

This car is so awesome, but don't even get me started on the Crown Vic wagon in the background!

This paradigm has worked well through almost five decades!  This post (and the next one) is going to cherry-pick one right out of the middle of that timeline and focus on it for a little while.

'84 GT with the funk bulgie hood, T-tops, and '07 rims.

'80 Mustang with T-tops and the most righteous stance I've seen on one of these!

I'm a huge proponent of the mid-'80s Mustangs.  I'm even a member of the "Four-Eyed Forum."  I want one of these so bad.  I've heard a lot of knowledgeable car guys talking about these cars, that had been modded slightly, being one of the scariest cars to ride in because they were so quick and powerful compared to their measly 2800lb curb weight.  A lot of people like to use these cars for drag racing.  (We'll talk more about racing in the second part of this post.)

My favorite part of these cars is the shear number of restyles within the 14 years they built this body.  You could build a completely unique car with factory parts from different year.  For instance, I would use the fron end from an '83-4, the rocker covers and back bumper from a '87, the louvre-less quarter windows from a '93, the taillights and spoiler from an '80, and put it all on a T-top body ('79-'87).  It'd be a sleeper because of the engine swap as well as the bolt-on body parts.  People would see it and know something's different, but they wouldn't be able to pin point what it is because all the parts are stock.  They don't normally get put together on the same car, but they are stock.

I always kind of thought this would make for a good second gen Mad Max car, but maybe that's just me...

So, my T-top Franken-Fox body would have the classic, beautiful black paint job.  Like a good drag car, the rims are still up in the air.  This car would be a complete stealth build.  I might put flat black stripes on it too, like my GT500 KR clone concept.

This is the only view the people I drive near will be seeing.
Again with the stance...

Also like my GT500 clone concept, I would drop in a supercharged 5.4L in this car.  This would have to be mated to a 6-speed because and automatic in a Mustang like this would simply be a travesty.  I would definitely go for a road-hugging, pro-touring stance on this, but I'd run drag radials in the back (or at least leave room for them in the wheel tubs).  The interior would stay as stock as possible.  The only major changes I would do would be a roll bar (see pic), remove the back seat, and replace the front seats with something that has a little more "hug" to them.  I want to be comfortable on road trips, but not meet the shifter if I take a hard corner.

Let's see this car try to kill me with that inside!

So in the end, I'll need to get at least three of these Mustangs.  This one for awesomeness, the one in the next post for racing fun, and a stock '86 like the picture below for general mayhem and accidentally wrapping around some sort of tree, post, or bridge support.

Doesn't this shot just make you want to go out, jump in, and burn some tires towards the horizon.  I picture this doing a butt-sliding 180 onto that street on the left border there, tires ablaze and gravel flying everywhere.  The people left behind won't be able to tell which way it went other than the sound of revving engine because the cloud will be so thick!  These are the things I think about late at night...