Still in production since 1964, the Ford Mustang holds the dubious honor of being the longest-production Ford car nameplate. That’s not necessarily a good thing.
And everything revolves around a specific detail – if you check the company’s online portal, the current 2022/2023 Mustang is the sole passenger car still on sale by the second-largest Detroit automaker. Everything else, from the puny $22k EcoSport to the $55k Expedition and from the unibody Maverick to the Super Duty or Transit series, is of the crossover, SUV, van, or truck variety.
That is quite unfortunate since other brands are still keeping the passenger car banner up, but it is also a story for another day. Today we are here to discuss the impact of a certain Ford Mustang series on the quarter-mile dragstrip lifestyle. So, back to the ‘Stang, the original was produced for the 1965 to 1973 model years and opened up a completely new automotive niche called ‘pony’ cars.
The second iteration was a smaller, more fuel-efficient generation, and while it may not be the best-looking out there, it certainly helped the nameplate survive the distressful times of the Malaise era. The true rebirth of the Mustang then took place across two different stages. That would be the SN-95 fourth generation (1995 – 2004) with its ‘New Edge’ styling theme applied to the 1999 refresh as well as the retro-modern reinvention that started with the fifth generation (2005-2014) and continues to this very day, even with the upcoming S650 seventh iteration.
And in between, there was also the long-lived 1979 to 1993 third-generation Ford Mustang that was built on the company’s Fox platform. As such, these versions are commonly known as the Fox Body, grouped into a couple of major segments – the quad-headlight 1979 to 1986 versions and the streamlined 1987 to 1993 upgrade. On this occasion, our feisty story revolves around a proud representative of the former category.
Remember, these little Fox-bodied Mustangs have become – over the years – great tuning platforms. They’re cheap and readily available, yet also capable of duking it out with contemporary sports cars after an extremely wide variety of possible upgrades. Anything goes, from turbo to supercharging, and from Coyote to Hemi swaps, as well as anything in between, including 2JZs or nitrous treatments.
Now, courtesy of the videographer behind the Jmalcom2004 account on YouTube, who is back for the daily dose of Middle Georgia Motorsports Park 1/8-mile action, let us check out the bravery of a big-nitrous, Hemi-headed Ford that was getting busy against fellow nitrous-powered peers.
Unfortunately, it is quite hard to make out the details about the make and model of its competitors during both runs. Alas, it might not even matter, in the end, as both skirmishes were clearly won by the four-eyed Fox Body. And, if you want more nitrous and/or turbo action, the second video embedded below is like a full-length feature film!
