1979-’93 Ford Mustang
Despite the critical drubbing it now receives from the collector community, Ford sold more than 1 million Mustang IIs over its five-year run during largely awful economic times. It would be easy to screw up that kind of sales record, so any new Mustang had a hard act to follow. Luckily, Ford developed a winner that lasted a decade and a half with relatively minor alterations—with bones that lived under Mustangs clear into 2004.
Much as the original Mustang had Falcon underpinnings, the new-for-1979 Fox-platform Mustang used new-for-1978 Ford Fairmont chassis basics, including MacPherson strut front suspension, rack-and-pinion steering, and sections of the Fairmont’s floorpans. Fairmont was Ford’s new bread-and-butter sedan and had been met with strong positive reaction from both the press and consumers for its overall package of cost, room, efficiency, and driving pleasure; it was a no-brainer to base the redesigned Mustang upon it. Unusually for the era of gas-crunch-influenced downsizing, the Mustang (no Roman numeral attached) managed to be bigger than the car it replaced: Its wheelbase and overall length stood 4-plus inches larger, while overall height, plus front and rear track, all grew an inch. And yet the new Mustang, without the use of exotic materials like aluminum in the body or engine, weighed 200 pounds less than a comparable Mustang II.
Its aero-chiseled features, so radical at the end of
