Some harsh words were said regarding the 3rd gen Mustangs. I agree they aren't great cars, not much good came from the 80's except maybe the Grand National and few other exceptions. Foxes are cheap plastic lined tin cans with bad suspension, shit brakes, shit instrument panel, weak transmissions, 4 lug wheels and poorly designed unibody construction. BUT they were crucial in bringing performance back to cars.

Muscle cars died in the 70's... Ford helped to bring it back in 1982 with the new 5.0HO (Different from the 79 5.0 and 2.3T and obviously the 80-81 4.2L V8), I believe 82 was a very significant year in the Mustang history. Yes it could have been a K-car as Lou mentioned without the small block windsor but it's more than that. It was, after all, a; LIGHTWEIGHT, RWD, V8 POWERED pony car. Maybe if Dodge put RWD in their K-car and offered a 340 it would be regarded as something other than a simple cheap platform that helped save Dodge in the 80's (Don't say Dodge Mirada please)

Foxes are classics, I don't understand the refusal of the fact that these 5.0/T5 things (in decent shape) are actually RARE and especially in original paint, low mile form. You can in fact start seeing them as how we saw 60's Mustangs back in the 90's. I also believe they are the LAST true collector mas-produced cars we will ever see.

People who collected pre-WWI cars are all dead now, people who collected true muscle cars are in old folk homes with cataracts, now it's another generations turn to "collect" cars they once had or their dads had growing up... More demand than supply = jacked up prices. The 5.0 has a serious following, the foxbody has transcended it's own brand, no other Mustang has ever succeeded in that. No matter how slow they are today even compared to econoboxes, they will always be known as "the car to beat", it's now part of a car guy's DNA.

Why am I leaving the foxbody hobby then?

My father's death made some new neural pathways which changed my thinking about cars in general. I feel bad spending time alone in my garage wrenching on my old cars and even worse when my family doesn't really enjoy riding around in the old cars. Plus add to the fact that they are barely any safer than a motorcycle, I don't want to risk getting us all injured on a joyride where the chance of survival are much higher in newer vehicles.

Also, get this! Turns out, I can't stand stock foxes. I had a super clean notch which was 97% stock down to the springs... I hated the brakes, I hated the suspension, I just did not enjoy driving the thing, even the stupid cushy low back LX seats hurt my back. I've spent so much money and time taking the fox out of my notch with thousands and thousands of dollars for brakes, suspension, wheels, etc... and it's still behind the 2017 in terms of handling, comfort, amenities, braking, acceleration, etc... I just don't enjoy it. And of course I have the poor man's notch which came from factory without AC, no power anything and not even a stupid radio. Makes the experience lackluster to me now. <- still don't care about not having cup holders. I'm a 40+ year old who enjoys finer things in life and sitting in a shitty plastic chamber doesn't appeal to me anymore. The only old tech I really enjoy is my Marshall tube amp, it really is a different dynamic and to me music should be analog.

I'm slowly getting out of the car hobby which is why I was in the market for a 2018/19 Mustang (but ended up with a 17 for some reason lol). This is my last V8 car, my next one will be an electric (Probably a Tesla even if I'm not a big fan of Musk, no one else has a good performing electric yet). I figured I can't go cold turkey, I didn't even like the 10 speed auto everyone seems to jerk off to these days. It will take me time to get tired of banging gears and give up and go with the flow of progress. Once I start to feel that owning a gas guzzling manual V8 is just stupid, I'm jumping ship, getting a modern car that can actually drive me to work and just see a car as another place to enjoy creature comforts - not "feel the road, mechanical, raw, I'm gonna die here muscle car" [insert Tim Taylor (Tool Time) grunt arggh argghhh arrghhhh thing]

The funny part is, while I enjoy my 17 very much (did 2400km in a month). I'm starting to feel bad owning a V8 car in 2019 when the planet is about to kill us all with climate change and here I am, someone with at least average intelligence, not smart enough to make a change in my own life to at least not be part of the problem.* Although I get real good MPG on the highway which is 95% of my driving anyway, I get better MPG than all the mid-sized SUV's I see passing me as I mind my own business in the slow lane, going 100kmh in 6th gear lol...

So yeah, the fox is still an 80's tin can. It's a tin can a lot of people love for many reasons. They are important to Ford's history and probably is the reason for 99.99% of everyone on this board being into cars in general (even you S550 10-speed guys who shit on us manual transmission guys lol). I'm only done with them because they don't fit with my life. I've finally moved on after so many foxes and so many hours restoring and wrenching on them. also nothing personal towards foxbodies at all, the car guy in me is dying off making room for other lines of thought.

Thanks for hearing out my rant lol

*Side note: I made my house super efficient, my heating/cooling costs are pretty low. I cut back on cow meat, eat mostly chicken and throw in some vegetarian meals into the mix. I also try my best to telecommute as much as I can and I'm helping to push a company with over 250 office employees to embrace a telecommute policy, I could single handily take 250 cars off the road if they don't fire me in the process. lol So I don't feel "super bad" about my V8 car doing on average 9L/100km on the highway but holy hell does it like to drink if you start shifting past 3000rpm lol