Will Fox Bodies go up in value?

85ragtop said:

For someone who does not like our cars you sure do post in here a lot.

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Who says I don't like them? I just think they’re dated and won’t be worth near what a lot of owners think they will simply because of their emotional involvement in the particular line.

You probably weren’t around then, but before I bought my XR7 and began spending more time over in the 4.6L section, I started over here in 5.0L area with you guys.

I had my '87 LX 5.0L for 6-years and loved it over pretty much the whole time I owned it. It was cheap (in cost and maintenance), fun to drive and looked good from any angle, but lets be honest.....it wasn't anything special. It was a cheap (bean counter special), crappy car (quality wise) with a torquey little V8 under the hood. Sure, the power and rear wheel drive configuration made you feel like you were driving a real sports car, but at the end of the day it was just an overpowered Fairmont we were driving. The fact that the chasis, suspension and brakes were so under qualified for the amount of power it was putting out made you feel that it was so race oriented more than anything because it was hell on wheels to keep on the road. I honestly can't say it did anything really well, except look good and go fast in a strait line. That combined with the fact that there were a gazillion of them made is the reason they’ll never be worth any real money later on down the road.

Strippt88 said:

Shadow of its former self... obviosly, you were't around cars in the late 80's. The only way to get any real performance for your dollar was in a Mustang, just as the inventors wanted back in 64. For $11,008 dollars, I left the showroom with a car that people sill look for today, performance you couldn't match, dollar for dollar.

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I think its you whose a little hazy on the 80’s? It was a horrible era for the North American Automotive Industry. The reason these cars sold so well was because unless you wanted to drive around in one of the Generals Camaro’s or Trans Am, your only other option for a RWD performance car was the more expensive Corvette, Grand National or Nissan 300ZX. It’s pretty easy to sell cars when “you” are your only competition. And it wasn’t just the Mustang that was considered reasonably priced throughout that time, pretty much everything made in North America went for a song because Ford, GM and Dodge were losing their shirts to the Japanese manufactures and had to off incentive to buy their product.

Strippt88 said:

Shadow? If you dump $30,000 of your money today on a new Mustang, it won't have the same impact as the fox did on the industry. Ford wanted to cancel this line so bad, and forcefeed us the Probe, it was crazy. They wanted it dead. But the "shadow" kept on selling, we kept on buying, and now we have threads, and fans, and people saying, " I had one of those, it was awesome..." just like the old ones. And now they're getting hard to come by, good ones, anyway, and those people will part with ever increasing $ amounts to get one. I'd say, its coming full circle rather quickly.

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Well, to be fair.....ALL cars are built much better standards now than they were in the 80’s and there are 3-times as many vehicle options to choose from than there were back then. It’s hard to compare the sales figures and impressions from now, to those of the past when you’ve got companies like Toyota, Nissan, Honda and even Hyundai (who back then were geared almost strictly to the econobox market) that are coming in and stealing up sales right under the nose of GM, Ford and Dodge because lets face it.....in most cases they now build a superior product!

And again, since the Fox Mustang and GM Camaro/Trans-Am were esentially your only choice for a sporty, economically priced RWD V8 powered car back then, it’s no surprise that it sold so well. The Mustang being a quality automobile with any sort of ground breaking performance features had nothing to do with it! Anyone with any sense will remember these cars for what they were and pay accordingly for them. You’ll notice the ones sitting in the Auto Trader whose owners are asking astronomical amounts for are still there when it comes renewal time for the ad. Like I said before, you’ll get the odd enthusiast that just has to have one so bad, he’ll pay almost anything for it, but amongst the average consumer, they’re still considered a car built in 19XX. The 60's era Mustangs were the originators and appealed to everyone. It was a time when only a hand full of cars were even on the road and other than the Corvette, you couldn't even own another "Sport oriented" car in America at the time.....so naturally everybody who was anybody had to own one. That was a loooong time ago and that era is way over. There dozens of different makes and manufacturers, with hundreds of different models being put out now to millions upon millions of people. No Mustang built now, or since then will ever have the same kind of impact, or be in the same league that the originals were, I don't care how cheap they are, how many are build or how well they're made.

Strippt88 said:

Bash the Fox if you want (maybe you should get one, first), but its the reason you have a new Mustang, and soon the Challenger, and the new Camaro... just like in the old days. Give it 10 years. I'll make money, if I wasn't planning on being buried in it.

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Tell me, why exactly is it when you don’t 100% agree with the general consensus of a hand full of members, that you’re automatically “bashing” their cars? You’re making assumptions here that have no basis in fact. Read my statement above. I owned, built and drove the piss out of a Fox body Mustang for 6-years. And I had 3 others throughout the 90’s besides that one. I’ve put in my dues and am as qualified as any current owner is to speak about them. And lets be clear.....true, the reason the Mustang is still being built today, is because the Fox body carried the brand through the 80’s and into the 90’s. But come one.....the reason you’ve got a Ford vehicle at all today was because Ford built a little econobox we all know and love as the “Tempo”. I don’t year you paying any tribute to it in your rant?

Look, I chose a while back to move on based on my own personal need for greater refinement and newer edge appeal and now look at the particular model from a more "practical" perspective, much like the general public looks upon them. I came to the realization that the car was what it was and no matter how much money I sunk into it, or how much I told myself it was something more it was still going to be the same, tired old pony in dire need of a clean slate underneath. If I considered it special in any way, it’s only within the confines of my own heart and the many fond memories of my youth I had that I could relate to it while going through my formative years. Otherwise, I’m perfectly willing to accept that since the Fox body, the Ford Mustang has continued to get better and better with each new model. The latest S197 has proven that time and time again and anyone who feels otherwise from any perspective other than a pure “nostalgic” one isn’t living on a little planet I like to call earth!