From Oil Crisis to Icon: How Enthusiasts Helped Save Mustang and Make the Fox Body a Legend

The Fox body platform is one of the most well-known in Ford’s history and for good reason. It underpinned many Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles for nearly two decades, including icons such as Mustang, Thunderbird, and Lincoln Continental, but it was the passion of Mustang enthusiasts who helped give it new life in the late 1980s. 

Known by its code name “Fox,” the European-inspired platform was born out of necessity fueled by gas shortages and the oil crises of the 1970s, as customers shifted en masse to cars with better fuel economy. It was introduced as the basis for the 1979 Ford Fairmount and Mercury Zephyr, but the Fox body is best known for the third-generation Mustang it reinforced from 1979 through 1994 – and then some. 

Not so fast …

Mustang sales had been lagging through the 1980s, and Ford was looking to revive its Pony car by going to a front-wheel-drive layout, which had been growing in popularity with imported brands. The introduction of a front-wheel-drive Mustang platform created in partnership with Mazda would have meant a much earlier end of the Fox platform...if not for the outrage of Mustang enthusiasts. 

Prototypes of the new would-be “Mustang” were spotted around Dearborn in early 1987 as word of the change in Mustang strategy began to get out. In a world still two decades away from the introduction of social media, enraged Mustang fans immediately began an impassioned letter-writing campaign that only intensified after Autoweek magazine blew the story wide open with a cover story called, “The Next Mustang.” Ford Motor Company reversed course based on the feedback, extending the Fox body’s run – the front-wheel-drive platform would become the Ford Probe, a name that had accompanied a series of aerodynamic concept vehicles prior. 

Mustang went on to outsell the new Probe, earning itself a fourth generation, though a front-wheel- drive model was again considered before a significant overhaul of the Fox platform – approximately 80% of the “new” Fox-4 platform was updated – was ultimately approved rather than an all-new platform, due to budget constraints. The SN95 Mustang debuted with the 1994 model year, earning Motor Trend Car of the Year. The car received a refresh in 1999 before the fabled Fox body finally met its demise in 2004, roughly 25 years after its introduction and several years after it had last been used to create another vehicle. 

Ford sold more than 2.6 million third-generation Mustangs, an era that saw a renewed emphasis on performance as the gas crisis faded with the reintroduction the Mustang GT (1982) and convertible (1983), as well as the additions of the Mustang SVO (1984) and SVT Cobra (1993). The cars remain popular today with street and drag racers for their lightweight and compact design, not to mention the legions of Mustang enthusiasts who grew up with the cars. While the Fox body was created to underpin several Ford-built vehicles, its legacy is forever intertwined with Mustang thanks to the passion of its enthusiasts. 

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