Why are Fox Bodies called Fox Bodies?

Ford wanted to create a "world" platform, and VW had a "world" car with the VW Fox, so ford adopted that codename for the platform that was used on many Ford vehicles since 1978.

And AFAIK, it is Fox chassis not fox body.

yah a little reasearch turned up this
simply a name for the platform, nothing signifing meaning though,
http://www.mustangmonthly.com/thehistoryof/62978/

I have heard the VW theroy, but it's hard to imagine. GM and Chrysler always went with Letter Codes for thier bodies, such a A body, B-body, the familiar F-body, and not to mention, the P-body!!! I guess that would be the metro, J/K, there is not P-body. I don't really keep track of them though.

Fox Chassis, but most of us go by Foxbody. Although all mustangs from 79-04 were foxbodies, only the 79-93 are refered to foxbodies. I think as time goes on, even the SN-95's will end up getting the reference of Foxbody because of the base chassis as the 64-78 and the 05+ are so much different. Almost everything is interchangable from 79-04, that is why we have a HUGE aftermarket at a low price. Millions were produced over those years. I think now that the 05 has totally changed DEW platform, it will bring the Foxes and SN's togeather. 79-04 are all brothers, although the younger brothers are kind of fat and heavy, still brothers, but the other mustangs are more cosins.

90mustangGT said:

...and not to mention, the P-body!!! I guess that would be the metro, J/K, ....

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I used to throw my sisters in reverse and get it rollin' along for the 1st gear side step ... little 3-banger would leave a pair of fish-hooks

... Oh yeah, Pops put a transaxle in it a few months later

The different iterations on the fox chassis are usually broken up by a Roman numeral. We have fox III's, 94-95's are Fox IV's (and SN95's - body change).

Kumm3 said:

Ford wanted to create a "world" platform, and VW had a "world" car with the VW Fox, so ford adopted that codename for the platform that was used on many Ford vehicles since 1978.

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^^^^ This is exactly right. Lee Iacocca wanted to create a platform that could be used to build a lot of different vehicles without having to retool everything. He gave the engineering team the VW Fox as an example of what he wanted to do and the name stuck internally.

So it doesn't have anything to do with Red Foxx???