That's Not A Mustang; How I Sold a Purist on My Foxbody.

Even though he's more of a Shelby guy, it's good he can still appreciate the charm of a hooligan fox body.

I had forgotten how different the 71-73 mustangs were. They seemed to be more Torino sized and the fastback rear window was almost useless when looking in the rear view mirror. If the Mustang II had not came out at the same time as the emissions/ horsepower plunge malaise it might have been received much more enthusiastically.

In reply to ddavidv :

Ironically a few years back I saw a really cheap 65 Mustang convertible...........yup it was a 6 cylinder.  The timing wasn't right so I never went and looked at it but I would have been quite happy to cruise around in it.

I also comment about the latest crop of non V8 Mustangs, Challengers and Camaros being 300hp (or damn near) and how that's plenty of performance for a street car. Most of these non V8s are faster than the V8 powered 60-70s icons.

Tom1200 said:

In reply to ddavidv :

Ironically a few years back I saw a really cheap 65 Mustang convertible...........yup it was a 6 cylinder.  The timing wasn't right so I never went and looked at it but I would have been quite happy to cruise around in it.

I also comment about the latest crop of non V8 Mustangs, Challengers and Camaros being 300hp (or damn near) and how that's plenty of performance for a street car. Most of these non V8s are faster than the V8 powered 60-70s icons.

Heck, you don't even have to go back that far. Most of them are faster than my 2005 GT.

But not as much fun to drive

Depends. My '06 V6 stick is a daily driver. I had it on the track once, just out of curiosity, and it was quite competent aside from the speed limiter it is saddled with. 210 hp wasn't lightning fast, but it wasn't Miata slow either. As a daily, with the stick it's plenty peppy and truly is fun to drive on a back road. The only things it lacks are the sound and the ability to impress the Civic crowd when leaving a Dairy Queen...the latter of which I care nothing about. With the later 300hp V6 the pedestrian 'secretary' version is certainly a performance car.

The performance chasm is probably just as broad today as it was in 1965 between 6 and 8, but the power levels have climbed to the point where my rather tame 4.0 has the same output as the 'performance' 289 did back in the day. The straight six in my Falcon was only a small step above 'anemic' with the auto trans behind it, which is why that car is undergoing a V8 swap. But with the six it was still an okay car for the chassis it has and I didn't loathe driving it in stock form. With a manual trans it probably would also have been 'okay', if unexciting.

Fun to drive to me is the sum of the parts, not just a HP figure.

Well stated 

Thanks

ddavidv said:

Fun to drive to me is the sum of the parts, not just a HP figure.

On my son's first autocross run in the Foxbody he spun the car in a big way just before the finished. 

As we were coming of the course he declared "this car is fun as hell!"

It's all I need out of a car................

Great experience