I fulfilled one of my teenage dreams this weekend. I am finally the owner of a Fox Body Mustang. I wrote about my love for these cars in one of my first blog posts. The first Mustang I ever rode in was a Fox Body and the first Mustang I ever drove was a Fox Body. There is an extensive list of cars that I want and as new cars come out each year, that list gets bigger and bigger. The Fox Body Mustang has maintained a spot on that list over all the years though.
Early in the new year, I decided this would be the year I get a project car. In my initial searches for potential project cars, I tried to cast a wide net. Mustangs came up in a lot of my searches of course because they met the basic criteria – rear wheel drive, available manual transmission, and depending on the year and mileage, reasonably affordable. I was pleasantly surprised to see a few Fox Bodies pop up in my searches though because they have increased in value over the years and are seemingly becoming more rare.
After coming across half a dozen Fox Bodies that seemed to fit my criteria, I thought maybe the universe is trying to tell me something. I reached out to the seller of a beautiful 1988 GT and eventually met up with him to check out the car. I made an offer, which he initially accepted. We worked out some details and then at the last minute, he backed out and decided he didn’t want to sell the car. I was disappointed but I moved along. I met up with the owner of a unique 1990 LX and met up with him to check that car out as well. I made an offer. He got back to me a couple of days later and he had decided he didn’t want to sell the car. I reached out to the seller of a 1990 GT with a pretty wild flame paint job. We exchanged a few emails and I told him I would pay the asking price but I just needed to see the car in person. He ghosted me. At this point I was just thinking maybe the universe is trying to tell me something….and I completely fucking misunderstood it earlier.
I was ready to take a break from Fox Body searching for a while but I decided to try and check out two more cars I had seen listed close to Baltimore. Last weekend I went and checked out both of them. They were both promising but one, a 1990 GT, looked like it just needed a lot more work and money than I would be able to provide. The other promising car was a 1988 GT. I made the seller an initial offer, which he accepted and we worked out the details of the sale over the course of the week. I tried my best to temper my expectations, in case he changed his mind. Fortunately that did not end up being the case and I picked the car up yesterday. Here’s the newest addition to the garage:
The car is definitely very “analog” compared to a lot of the stuff available now. It is a blast to drive though and the torque is really impressive from the mostly stock 5 liter pushrod V8. I’m really excited to start working on the car and getting it looking and driving better over the coming months. I’ll be documenting my progress on the blog as well as on my YouTube channel. Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for hopefully entertaining and educational Mustang videos. 🙂
