Invest In Foxbodymustang
- Thread starter 603mustangs
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I read this word for word online a few weeks ago. I prefer the voice in my head over the voice in that video, lol.
That video is so bad.
"Why is it called a fox-body? I know it's a really weird name to give to a car. Their vehicles went from being big like a cow, to small and nimble like a fox."
Yeah, princess, that had nothing to do with it. The Mustang II is easily just as nimble (without bumpsteer!) and weighs the same or less depending on options and is overall actually smaller. It's called the "fox-body" because Ford envisioned a vehicle line to compete with the Volkswagen Rabbit and it's variants, and decided to name the platform after the cars it was designed to go after, and what goes after rabbits? Foxes.
The dialog sounds like it was typed by a junior high kid with the voice work done by Xtranormal.
Is the fox the classic of the future? Possibly, I've noticed prices ticking back up. At the same time I've noticed Mustang II prices skyrocketing (they've gone from give-aways and less than $1000 for running/driving V8 cars to anything with a V8 being a minimum of $1000 and anything in good shape being $5000+) and SN95 prices bottoming out (there are two different 5.0 SN95s on CL near me for under $3000 right now that both run and drive, and 4.6 cars are even cheaper at the bottom of the spectrum). That said, there's been false alarms on the fox reaching "classic" status before, (momentary price increases that seem to bubble up and pop) and there are still sub-$1000 V8 foxes to be had out their in basket case/project condition, especially convertibles that need work done on the top.
Not saying the fox isn't the classic of the future, just saying that by this person's logic, I could argue that the Mustang II, Pinto, Vega, Monza, etc. are future classics, and honestly, aside from the II, none of those have any potential for it, and the II doesn't have much.
If I was buying an "investment car" right now, it'd be an SN95 with low miles, a V8, and a manual. $3-5k investment tops right now, the prices really can't drop any lower, and they're underappreciated and being hacked up left and right by teenagers, hot rodders, and racers, so their availability is slowly but surely drying up.
"Why is it called a fox-body? I know it's a really weird name to give to a car. Their vehicles went from being big like a cow, to small and nimble like a fox."
Yeah, princess, that had nothing to do with it. The Mustang II is easily just as nimble (without bumpsteer!) and weighs the same or less depending on options and is overall actually smaller. It's called the "fox-body" because Ford envisioned a vehicle line to compete with the Volkswagen Rabbit and it's variants, and decided to name the platform after the cars it was designed to go after, and what goes after rabbits? Foxes.
The dialog sounds like it was typed by a junior high kid with the voice work done by Xtranormal.
Is the fox the classic of the future? Possibly, I've noticed prices ticking back up. At the same time I've noticed Mustang II prices skyrocketing (they've gone from give-aways and less than $1000 for running/driving V8 cars to anything with a V8 being a minimum of $1000 and anything in good shape being $5000+) and SN95 prices bottoming out (there are two different 5.0 SN95s on CL near me for under $3000 right now that both run and drive, and 4.6 cars are even cheaper at the bottom of the spectrum). That said, there's been false alarms on the fox reaching "classic" status before, (momentary price increases that seem to bubble up and pop) and there are still sub-$1000 V8 foxes to be had out their in basket case/project condition, especially convertibles that need work done on the top.
Not saying the fox isn't the classic of the future, just saying that by this person's logic, I could argue that the Mustang II, Pinto, Vega, Monza, etc. are future classics, and honestly, aside from the II, none of those have any potential for it, and the II doesn't have much.
If I was buying an "investment car" right now, it'd be an SN95 with low miles, a V8, and a manual. $3-5k investment tops right now, the prices really can't drop any lower, and they're underappreciated and being hacked up left and right by teenagers, hot rodders, and racers, so their availability is slowly but surely drying up.
You just see things differently I guess. Admittedly, you got to to like the cars you do.
Sorry to take out all of the romance here, but the Fox chassis is nothing more than a alpha-numeric for 'F'. GM already was using that, so Ford extended the designator.
Fox was originally a fairmont/zephyr platform. (It was introduced in 1978 after all). The fox Mustang was integrated into that. They just shortened it accordingly. That said, if you have a fox body Mustang,........ MY CAR is yo baby daddy. As far as a "world car" goes, When they coined that phrase back then, Ford put their money on that boring assed looking, Mercedes wannabe styled Granada as their torch bearer for that, and that car was nothing different from a Maverick underneath.
With regard to the Fox Mustang being collectible. I can see that. Car collectors are like Langoliers anyway. Now that they have eaten up every available pre 73 version,....It only makes sense that they'd turn their attention to the car that finally handed Chevrolet it's ass back. They all probably have a little section in the B wing that isn't covered w/ stuff that used to roll under it's own power, and a 1993 Cobra R would cover that bald spot nicely.
The Fox/Rabbit thing came from a book on Mustang history as the answer given the author when interviewing a Ford engineer.
That wasn't the engineers, that was the accountants.
Yeah,..I've seen that. If that was the case the author forgot to mention the whole Fairmont/Zep thingy....
If you do a search you'll find all kinds of stuff out there from Iaccoca giving the design team a VW fox as a design platform to draw inspiration from (because evidently, that VW fox chassis was MacP strut front end, Rack and P steering, unibody, Coil sprung, 4 link rear w/ a centered diff.) to what I've said about it being a simple alpha-numeric. Personally,..I would give the Ford design/marketing team more credit than to claim that either:
A. They'd admit that a VW rabbit econo-box was the marketing target for a whole new chassis.
B. They'd Put a VW Fox on the floor so they could copy it, and then be so unimaginative, and so plagiaristic that they didn't even bother to CHANGE THE NAME OF THE CAR THEY STOLE THEIR DESIGN IDEAS FROM!!!
C. There was already a VW Fox......Why did Ford need a Fox to chase a rabbit? VW was already chasing itself.
It's about the universality of the chassis. The Fox chassis was extended, or shortened to allow them to stuff it under the LTD/Cougar/Fairmont/Zep/Thunderbird/Marquis/post 80 Granada,..and (I'm forgetting a couple............
,...OH Yeah!!!)Mustang/Capri.
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, FOXTROT.
AKA 'F'
And......
D. There's no way in Hell Ford was gonna call this platform a F body.
With this one last nail that I'll pound into the coffin before I drag my ass to work...
64-66 = A
67-68 = B
69=70 =C
71-73 = D
74-78 = E
and.....
79-93 = F
64-66 = A
67-68 = B
69=70 =C
71-73 = D
74-78 = E
and.....
79-93 = F
That's why I'm actively searching for a good SN95. Nobody cares about them, you can get clean ones cheap, and when people become priced out of Foxes ($10K for a decent fox? WTF?) people will look for the next best thing.
Trying to find a clean 96-98 Cobra vert for a summer cruiser
Ford didn't name platforms until the Fox and Panther, then they switched to alphanumerics and never switched back. Your alphabet theory gets shot to hell by the Fairmont/Zephyr being built first, combined with the fact that the first 30 years of Mustangs used pre-existing chassis families. The SN95 was the first Mustang built on it's own version of a chassis, and even it was just a heavily revised fox under it all.
Let's completely forget the chassis then.
Let's forget that Ford may, or may not have used numbers, or alpha designators for the different versions over the years.
I'll still buy into the 5th letter alpha designator for the 5th bodystyle revision of the car before I'll believe that it was named based on it being competition for the mega-dork VW Rabbit.
First, have you looked at the prices of Pinto, Vega, Monza. They're still not expensive, but they're not $200 for a slightly rusty runner anymore either. Vega/Monza's are not cheap, there aren't many left. Either way, I like those better than Mustang IIs regardless of their collectability status.
As for SN95, I suppose you can look at those as where the Fox was 10-15 years ago. I wouldn't expect them to do anything different than the Fox as time goes on as there are tons of them out there. Not sure they're at rock bottom yet, but it's probably close. Every time I think about buying a car and start looking, they make a lot of sense for bang for the buck. But ... along with Mustang IIs, it's the only other gen of Mustangs I have no real desire to own.
Around here they're still pretty cheap when they show up. There's a V8/T5 swapped Pinto down here for $2000. Thought about buying it for the T5, driveshaft, etc, and swapping my C4 into it and re-selling. Vegas and Monzas are unpredictable in price when they do surface, but hell, that's rare because most of the Vegas rusted into dust or were crushed and recycled by now, and Monzas didn't fare much better. I've seen a Monza under $1000 that ran (knocked, but ran, I missed buying that to swap in a junkyard 350 and flip for easy profit by a day) in the past year, and a decent condition Vega at the low low price of "come get it and it's yours" (I didn't want it).
Your loss. In spite of their inglorious underpinnings, they make damned good low-buck hotrods. The lack of respect just makes it more fun. The lack of collectibility/resale value when I first got into them meant I could do whatever I wanted, because, "who the hell cares? It's a II, nobody's going to buy it anyway!" Now I'm turning down offers that are higher than what I paid for it and watching concours cars in the five-digits now and wondering if I haven't made a mistake.
Ya see, that's exactly why I'm shopping for the right SN95 right now... two of them actually. One to build, one to keep stock. One's an investment, the other's really just a Mustang II with ABS, factory EFI, airbags, better aftermarket support for now (I see it drying up slowly but surely already), and more modern creature comforts as far as all the haters are concerned.
- Dec 19, 2010
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Ahem.. Ford's first chassis designation happened in 1908.... it was "T." The next came along in 1927. That one would have been A.
Just throwing that out there...
Just throwing that out there...
No, your car's daddy was a Chevy Nova. (I have got to dig that book out and scan some pages for you guys, it's an awesome read.)
Amazon product ASIN 0681076305View: https://www.amazon.com/Mustang-Americas-classic-pony-car/dp/0681076305/ref=sr_1_104?ie=UTF8&qid=1481735431&sr=8-104&keywords=Mustang+History+Book
I think this is it.
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No, no, no. Those were "Models".
Model T
Model A
etc.
Then they quit being lazy and started naming cars!
Now cars are back to being letters because they got lazy again... sometimes numbers. No imagination. "MKZ" "G37" Whoop-dee-freakin-do. Hyundai, VW and GM may do stupid names like "Veloster", "Tiguan" and "Cruze" but at least they're freaking trying!
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