PASADENA, Calif. — Ford engineers harnessed 21st-century technology to pay homage to an unexpected hero in the new 2024 Mustang: the 1979-’93 “Fox-body” Mustang, a relic of what may be Detroit automakers’ darkest hour, the 1980s.
The 2024 Mustang’s high-definition driver information center painstakingly duplicates gauges from the Fox-body, using gaming-level Unreal Engine computer graphics in a salute to the newly collectible third-generation Mustang. “Fox-body” was Ford’s internal term for the car, which used the codename-Fox platform that debuted as the underpinning to the largely forgotten 1978 Ford Fairmont and Mercury Zephyr compacts, successors of the original Ford Maverick
The Fox-body style was the longest-lived in Mustang history. Although its performance was laughable by today’s standards — A 139-horsepower, 5.0L V8 engine? Seriously? — it was welcomed as the return of the classic pony car. Ford built nearly 2.3 million Fox-body Mustangs.
The Mustang’s ‘savior’
“Among Mustang fans, the Fox-body car is seen as a kind of savior that returned the brand to its roots after the apostasy of the 1974-78 Mustang II,” said Matt Anderson, transportation curator at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn.
“The Fox car looked very different from the first- and second-generation Mustangs, but it captured the spirit of a sporty little car that, like the original Mustang, stood apart from what was on the road at the time.”
Ford digital product design manager Craig Sandvig couldn’t wait to tell me about the high-tech salute to the decidedly low-tech car after I recently drove the 2024 Mustang.
“It’s now the hot generation of Mustangs for collectors,” he said. “The gauges have an iconic Ford cue: They lit up white by day and green at night.”
Surprising attention to detail
That’s a yawner in today’s cars, which use LEDs and microprocessors to offer hundreds of customizable colors of interior light, but it was unique, and required an extraordinary level of care in 1979.
“They used two lightbulbs for every source of light then” to provide the two colors, Sandvig said, shaking his head at the effort. “They couldn’t use pixel technology to do it. Now, with pixels, we have an unlimited palette.”
“We even could’ve replicated the variations of brightness you got from the individual lightbulbs in Fox-body clusters,” he said.
That may have been more realism than anybody wants, but the gauges use the same typeface and rigorously recreate the 3D appearance of 1980s mechanical speedometers and tachometers. Modern information, like low fuel and other warnings, is presented in a small box between the two round gauges.
Surging Fox-body prices
Over the past five years, the 1979-93 Ford Mustang has appreciated faster than any other Mustang generation, according to data from automotive lifestyle brand and classic-car insurance provider Hagerty. Since 2018, the average value of a condition 2 — the second highest level — Fox-body Mustang rose 180% to $43,957.
The Fox-body also has the youngest fans among collectible Mustangs. Nearly 83% of Hagerty’s requests for insurance quotes are from owners born after 1964 — that is, people younger than the Mustang itself.
“The Fox-body was a watershed car in the Mustang lineup and in American sports cars in general,” said Art Cervantes, director of RADwood, which celebrates 1980s and ‘90s style.
“It was more than capable on the street, track or drag strip. It also took well to modification and it was fairly simple to wrench on. It had the longest run of any Mustang generation, so plenty of folks grew up idolizing it. All this culminated in a generation-defining sports car that is appreciated to this day.”
In addition to the Fox-body gauges, the 2024 Mustang’s configurable 12.3-inch instrument cluster has displays for multiple driving modes and a 3D rendering of the Mustang you can rotate by hand on its 13.2-inch touch screen.
The 2024 Mustang goes on sale this summer.
Contact Mark Phelan: 313-222-6731 or mmphelan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan. Read more on autos and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.