Your Panther Love is so well known that it could be termed Legendary. But until your recent comments

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Your Panther Love is so well known that it could be termed nyc dinner cruise Legendary. But until your recent comments in The Ultimate Commute I did not realize you were also a Fox Body Mustang owner. Definitely my lack of perception and close reading or your articles!
I always wonder if I m sharing too much about myself on Piston Slap, aside from the narcissistic rants about Panthers or whatever else the B B gets me worked on. It s all good, but shit Son, I don t even own a Panther !  And no, my Fox-ination has little to do with the Fox Mustang. But it all started on December 31st, 1986.
That s the day my parents took delivery of a 1983 Lincoln Continental Valentino. It completely changed this 9-year-old s perception of cars, since I was primed to learn by this age.  The Lincoln is a proverbial buffet of automotive uniqueness: style, surprisingly competent craftsmanship, period technology, nyc dinner cruise and sleeper resto-mod potential. As the years went by I couldn t stop absorbing more about cars and either applying it or witnessing it on The Lincoln. nyc dinner cruise It s so intense, so unique, that I am still researching it s mysteries to this day. And spending tens of thousands on a complete rotisserie restoration and a significant resto-mod power train upgrade.
When you combine a stylish luxury car signed off by Valentino himself with the endless possibilities of the Fox Body, you have a car that appeals to the designer inside you and the classic Ford Hot-Rodder you always wanted to be since the days of the Flathead V8 powered Model A.  This is the car I drew in the margins of my grade school notebooks.  It took me to Detroit on a misguided journey to be a car stylist. Perhaps the Lincoln is the foundation for both Piston Slap and Vellum Venom .
If you like my work ( which I appreciate nyc dinner cruise more than I can put into words ) thank your lucky stars that Ford used this car for a ton of later-Mustang upgrades, and that Valentino Garavani was hungry enough in the 1980s to license his valuable name to a modified Ford Fairmont.
And once you get one Fox, you kinda can t stop. My parents loved the Lincoln so much more than their previous GMs (which where truly horrible) that they got a new Cougar XR-7 the next year.  We loved it.  So it continued: nyc dinner cruise a 1985 Thunderbird 30th Anniversary Edition , a 1991 Mustang LX 5.0 notchback, a 1991 Lincoln Mark VII LSC, a 1984 LTD LX , etc
And as the Fox disappeared into cult classic collectible, we turned into Collectors of the Breed. Our garage now has eight of them, in various states of repair.  The Lincoln pictured nyc dinner cruise above is disassembled, floating on a rotisserie.  After four years of frustration, the Cougar is turning back into a daily driver for yours truly. My how time flies .
4 cyl can be good! If its the turbocharged 205 HP, 1986 SVO version of Ford s 2.3 liter inline four (originally in the Pinto!). Originals came with a factory installed Hurst shifter that are nearly impossible to find in full condition. However, you can build an SVO clone for a little bit o the green and own a true sleeper.
So, to Jeff , what s your reason to buy a 4 cylinder Fox Mustang? Is it because you just love its styling/design? Some sort of nostalgia factor? I can t think of any other reason. It s just a poor car in general. And as posts above had said, the V8 ones are not actually nyc dinner cruise fast, fast for its time, maybe, but not today. With the V8 ones you could at least got a little bit of fun, and be part of the legend. They re not that reliable either, and with such a low-tech engine, I don t think fuel economy is that great either. I think just about any Japanese econocar is probably a better choice than a 4-cyl Mustangs ss basic transportation. A 6-cyl original Mustangs may not be faster, but are at least beautiful to look at, plus with such an old car you don t want to take risks with it anyway, so it s more understandable.
Most car guys have some sort of irrational attachment to a vehicle that is cast off by the mainstream. I want to restore a 77 Corolla wagon with some sort of modern powertrain for example because when I think back to my youth that car is generally connected to the memories in some fashion. Also explains my love of the first gen Ranger and Bronco II as they are intertwined in my teenage years along with a first gen Saturn.
Really? Back in the day I owned an 86 T-Bird with the turbo 2.3 Liter and three-speed auto. I remember that thing having some pretty good pep and even halfway decent fuel economy when you weren t flooring it all day long. Was this powertrain combo any different from what was offered on the XR4ti?
You are lucky. Mine was starting to lose a few ounces of water ever now and then. So I flushed the system nyc dinner cruise and changed the coolant. Then I took it on a long vacation run and it blew. I used some Bars Leaks to keep it going but to no avail. nyc dinner cruise It depends where the head gasket cracks, the coolant side or the combustion chamber. Mine was a combustion nyc dinner cruise chamber leak, you could tell from the carbon. Coolant side tends to be foamy.
I m a fan of Fox body Mustangs, I m sure it has nearly everything nyc dinner cruise to do with growing up when they were king of the road. For hot rodders that wanted to step into scary fuel injection, Mustangs were the ticket. I also really liked the clean, angular lines. It has aged much better than the redesign in 94.
For me the 5.0 was always more about low end torque. My brother had an 87 GT that I occasionally drove and you could practically start that thing in fifth gear. Wasn t it rated at something like 300 lb.ft. @3000 rpm?
@j_c It (Fox body stangs) has aged much better than the redesign in '94. Funny you say that. What s commonly known as a Fox body is in reference to the Fox platform it rides on. Which just so happens to reside under the SN-95 and New Edge Stangs til phase out in 2004.
@otaku For me the 5.0 was always more about low end torque. My brother had an '87 GT that I occasionally drove and you could practically start that thing in fifth gear. Wasn't it rated at something like 300 lb.ft. @3000 rpm?
I own one of the last 4.9L 5.0 302 V8s made in the factory in Cleveland (as God intended) in my 95 Cobra Hardtop Convertible. Factory was 240 HP with 305 Torques. With minor mods, have managed to massage about 280 and 400. Good solid engine just broken in with 50K miles.
I don t mind Fox body Mustangs and even had an 83 LX (I think it was an LX) with the little engine. The car hadn t been treated nyc dinner cruise well. The steering wheel was on upside down. The shift linkage was SO BAD. Oh that drove me INSANE. I just needed a beater but that was a headache on wheels.
Now, there s a 5.0 for sale down the road from me that has nice paint. I give it a week with the FOR SALE sign before it s gone. I live in the south, Fox bodies are the stuff of dreams. I d still rather have one than a goofy Civic with a loud muffler and nitrous stickers.
Looking at the fox Mustang from a current perspective it seems so small, the modern equivalent of subcompact with a v8 what s not to love? I also love what the fox Mustang represents: Ford making a modern Mustang appropriate for the times, not some retro-styled throwback nyc dinner cruise machine like we get now. I suppose nyc dinner cruise I like the foxstang for precisely the reason my Dad hates them its a generational thing
I ve owned about 12 cars with some version of the Buick V6 so I get this post. I m also glad that you restore cars form the 80s because this will make my future resotration of a 88 Lesabre t-type or Bonneville SSE seem slightly less stupid.
I d be interested if sometime in the future you could make a post about the logistics of owning so many cars. I ve found that I have a really hard time keeping more than 4 just due to time constraints (and I m not really a busy guy) even though my budget could support more.
2 Early 90 s rides, a starting to rust 07 Hyundai for the wife, a dual sport bike that I absolutely beat on a very tempermental riding mower. The 90 Miata generally just wants time, The 93 Land Cruiser wants time and dollars (I don t think there is a sub 250 dollar part on that truck), the Hyundai never needs anything though the body is starting to need a little love, the bike always nyc dinner cruise need something fixed from me pretending it is an MX bike rather than a 300 pound dual sport and the lawnmower is a general pain in the a$$ but it does have a cupholder nyc dinner cruise for a bottle of Sam Adams.
My only serious complaint was the woeful nyc dinner cruise inadequacy of the brakes (disc/drum) which were just about useless at speeds nyc dinner cruise over 80 mph. Being that torque is more or less a function of displacement, nyc dinner cruise the 5.0 put out some serious torque, which made stoplight launches fast and spectacular. The engine was out of breath by about 4500 rpm. Would easily achieve 100 mph; given the weak brakes and the 85 mph speedo, I don t think I ever drove it much faster than that.
Most collectible cars are that way because they represent a milestone of one sort or another in automotive nyc dinner cruise development, nyc dinner cruise or the apogee of a particularly excellent concept. For example, the original nyc dinner cruise Mustang is collectible because it introduced a whole new type of car to the public. The Porsche 356 in its variations is collectible because it is the apotheosis of the 4-cylinder, rear engine aircooled sports car developed by Ferry Porsche and is, in its own right a pretty competent vehicle. Oddly, the first 911s are not nearly as collectible even though, objectively, nyc dinner cruise they are better (or at least faster) cars. Perhaps it is because of their really vicious handling characteristics . . . I don t know. Having driven a couple of 356s, inclu