Sn95 vs Fox: Lets talk rust

revhead347 said:

It's a weight myth. If you take an equally equipped 93" Mustang GT and compare it with an equally equipped 94' Mustang GT, there is only 150lbs difference. The weight myth comes from what a normally equipped car came with in 93' vs what a normally equipped car came with in 94'. The 94' had 4 wheel disk brakes standard, and 2 airbags instead of 1. That's 50ls right there. Most of the remaining 100lbs weight difference comes from chassis enhancements. For example, the A-frame on an SN is double rolled steel to protect the occupants from a roll over collision. The interior door panels on a Fox are basically popped onto the inner sheet metal with garbage hardware. On the SN, the panels are attached with heavy plastic hooks corrogated into the interior panel itself.

If you really wanted to build an all out performance car, the SN wins hands down against the Fox. As for styling, the Fox shares the same lines with Chrysler K-car. The SN has so much more body definition.

Kurt

Click to expand...

There is no doubt that the SN has better technology - as it should. You should never build a new car that is worse than the old car, after all.

Still, stock for stock the SN was slower than the Fox in a straight line, and in that era the Mustang was always considered a straight line car. Historically, we should all be happy that there was a '94 Mustang at all because as we all know Ford had it's head on the block and was sharpening the axe right up to the presidential pardon

Reading about the history of the SN95 project and how it came together on a bare bones budget is actually pretty interesting, and realistically it was the best thing that ever happened to Fox owners because so many of those newer suspension pieces can be backdated into our vehicles.

With all that said, I will maintain that the reason the SN95 remains unpopular is twofold. First, the relatively low performance of the car hurt it a lot. Whichever way you cut it, the 94-95 5.0L car was slower to 60 MPH and in the 1/4 Mile than the 93 5.0L. On top of that, it was going up against the 93 Camaro/Firebird which was already stomping the 93 GT, and the expectation was that Ford would offer more competition with the 94 redesign. It took buying the Cobra to be competitive with the Z28, the GT simply had no chance. To make matters worse, in '96 Ford rolled out the 4.6L V8. This engine had even lower performance and the already slow Mustang GT got even slower! Again, stepping up to the Cobra was a world of difference, but it was also quite a bit more expensive, and they only made a limited number.

Second, while we can say styling is subjective, that is only true on the individual level. It's pretty rare that you see a car that is considered ugly by the majority of people command a high price. The SN95 rounded, bloated style is surrounded by the iconic 87-93 Fox (polarizing, but still widely liked) and the 99-04 New Edge which the majority would agree is the better looking compared to the 94-98. On top of that, with the PI heads and intake the 4.6l went from embarrassing to respectable, even if it was still easily crushed by the Z28 in stock form.

The SN95 will have some sought after pieces. 94-98 Cobra's will still bring some money in nice condition, although they will lag compared to similar condition '93 models (single model year run guarantees this more than anything) as well as 99 and 01 models. 03-04 Cobras are their own animal.

Other collectible SN95's... Saleen S351's, 95 Cobra R (obviously) and the Removable Hardtop Cobra Convertibles.