I’ve always found it easiest to learn by doing. Whether it’s studying verb conjugation for a foreign language, how to grill up a proper hamburger, or a humble oil change, in my experience there’s just no better way to get to grips with a task than by jumping in and getting your hands dirty. So after spending years reading about, watching videos about, and generally fantasizing about the idea of a true-blue rear-wheel drive V8 powered slice of American cheese, I was more than happy to dive right in and see what was what.
I picked up this 2003 Mustang GT last August, after spending basically all of COVID getting more and more bored with my Accord (COAL here for the curious). It was and still is a lovely daily driver – comfortable for my 6’8″ frame, roomy enough for 4 adults, and possessing of that trademark Honda sturdiness. All of that math adds up to a reliable and practical vehicle, but not a particularly exciting one and after a few years with it I was getting increasingly envious of the brash V8 cruisers sharking around my area.
Because I’m that stereotypical car enthusiast, I couldn’t justify plunking down $40,000 on a brand new car, so I started looking around Craigslist to see if a less wallet-damaging entry into this segment could be found. It wasn’t an easy decision as I really like the current gen Camaro and if I hadn’t have found this car I may very well have decided to go whole-hog and pick one of those up. As it turned out, though, I was lucky enough to find this 2003 Mustang GT for sale in a nearby suburb for a very reasonable price and jumped on it.
The story of the SN-95 Mustang has already been told quite well here in a CC by Greg Beckenbaugh, and it’s not my place to rehash it. Suffice it to say that my 2003 Mustang, as a descendant of those squared-off Fox bodies of yore, was certainly an adjustment coming from my Accord. Aesthetically, this era of Mustang is my favorite – not sure why, probably just because I’m a 90’s kid and grew up with these things being everywhere. I know a lot of folks prefer the S197 generation of ‘Stangs, but I find the neo-retro styling kind of gauche.
In terms of difference between my Accord and Mustang, the big things are pretty obvious – much louder exhaust (and what a great note these 4.6s have!), a clutch pedal that feels stolen from a Planet Fitness leg machine, and a steering wheel you can slice up a large pizza on, least of all that drift-happy oversteer that is mostly absent from my front wheel drive Honda. Then there are the smaller dazzling details that no one tells you about – the pathetically wimpy horn, the interior dome light that is turned on via manual toggle rather than when you actually open the car door, the flimsy plastic headlight toggle that my dad accidentally ripped out of it’s socket minutes after I bought the car… I could go on. I can’t tell how much of this was intentional nostalgia-bait by Ford to harken back to “the good ol’ days” of the rougher character of cars of that era or just simple penny pinching, but I have my suspicions…
Thankfully, the exhaust note of that 4.6 firing up goes a long way towards forgiving the lack of creature comforts. And speaking of that engine, paired with a 5 speed manual transmission and 275 width tires (the previous owner had 225’s on the car for some reason), it’s really been a joy to get to know the rear-drive/V8 mystique. Is it fast? By modern standards, not at all. But it sounds great, looks great, and gives me those Mad Max V8 growls. Even for someone who isn’t a huge Mustang “fan”, the ubiquity and accessible nature of these cars is really something special.
Congratulations on the Mustang! I love hearing about getting older, but good, vehicles.
Pretty sure the dome lights are supposed to turn on when opening the door. There’s an electrical gremlin in there somewhere.
I don’t know about the Fox bodies but other 1990s-2000s Fords had their door-ajar sensors built into the door latch mechanism; they also drove the dome light switching. And they failed a lot.
The change from the old, reliable and easily-replaced pin switches for the dome light was done to integrate with the “Door Ajar” warning circuitry which simplified wiring.
Another of Ford’s ‘better ideas’. The one that bugged me during this era was the truly inane cost-cutting of eliminating the ‘cancel’ button from the cruise control switches. So, in order to ‘cancel’ cruise control while on the highway, there were only two choices: hit the brake pedal (which had the effect of startling anyone driving behind) or turn off the cruise control, which wiped-out the speed setting.
Ford eventualy relented and brought the ‘cancel’ switch back, but it ranks right down there with moving the horn switch from the steering wheel hub to the turn signal stalk.
I’ve often wondered if all this picayune cost-cutting at Ford was the result of the same person since most of it seemed to be happening around the same general timeframe.
I believe the pressing the resume and set buttons together performs the cancel function; I know there is a system or two that uses this method.
X here and I love the sallies, Mustangs that is. This blue 2003 looks super clean. Well sir you have a blessed day 😊 X WESLEY STERLIN CRABB .
Thanks! Really enjoying it so far, the sound is just excellent. Yeah, I’ll have to look into that dome light thing. Like I said it’s not a big deal or anything, but annoying to deal with.
I liked the early 2000s styling way more than the chunky retro stang that came soon after. I have a 278hp v6 accord automatic and Im betting its quicker than that stang though.
3800 fan, that was always my gripe with the 90’s/00’s Mustang GT, all bark and no bite under the hood. Unless you got a Cobra model but those were WAY more $$$ and still are today.
Still they look cool, I like the curvy 90s ones before they went to the new edge a wee bit more.
Same here on the styling, the S197s just look cheesy to me. And yeah, pulling power from these 2V 4.6s seems to be a losing battle from what I’ve read. Bummer, because they really sound lovely.
Problem is expense, the most feasible option is boost but to make modern muscle car levels of power, but to do so the crank, rods and pistons all need to be changed to forged and between that and a supercharger kit you’ve fully surpassed the value of the car itself. Trying to make big power naturally aspirated is just masochism.
Horsepower isn’t everything though, you don’t need 460 horsepower like a new GT to run 12s in the quarter mile.
Very cool! As a 90s kid myself this gen was ubiquitous in the HS and college parking lots of the early to mid aughts. And I LOVE the Sonic Blue. You got a winner there.
Many thanks man! Yeah, the sonic blue wasn’t my 1st choice of color but it really sparkles in the sunlight
I have a 2000 Mustang GT convertible. You’re comments are spot on. It is slow but the exhaust sounds great. The interior, especially the interior door panels, is incredibly cheap for what was quite an expensive car. It makes a great sunny weekend cruiser.
“the interior dome light that is turned on via manual toggle rather than when you actually open the car door”
2000 Mustang driver, the dome light works with the door like any other modern car.
Sounds like someone has been messing with this car. The light switch isn’t that flimsy, unless it was previously broken and “repaired”.
The 1st generation SN95 Mustangs were alright, but I never really warmed to the 2nd gen SN95, and the reason is very easy to pinpoint: the shape of the quarter windows. They just didn’t look very good with the way they curved down perpendicular to the beltline. The styling of the rest of the car wasn’t particularly terrific, either. Ironically, the next generation S197 Mustang was technically no smaller, but it ‘looked’ more svelte, harkening much closer to the 1st generation car, particularly with the ersatz round headlights.
The story goes that Ford wanted the second SN95 Mustang to look more aggressive than the 1st version. Whether they accomplished that is debatable. Personally, I don’t think they succeeded.
Bullitts and Mach 1s had the best quarter windows, they helped the roofline a lot. I too was never much of a fan of the arch shape of the standard roofline. I like most of the New Edge design better than the SN95.
Yeah, the ersatz ‘Hofmeister kink’ achieved by slapping on a cover panel did make the Bullitt and Mach 1 the best looking SN95 Mustangs.
For the next generation S197 Mustang, Ford stylists brought back the quarter panel vent window from the 1966 GT-350, which improved the appearance immensely.
Agreed, those quarter windows on the Bullitt/Mach1 were way better than the arching roofline on the rest of the Mustangs after 99. The 94-98 quarter windows were extremely similar, but I don’t think identical.
Very nice looking survivor. I lump all the Foxes together, same basic car with improvements over the years, ’79 to 2004 was quite the run. It would be tough for me to pick a favorite Fox, I like them all and performance is easily enhanced in any of them if you have the wallet to support your needs.
I DO love the smell of burning rubber in the morning and tomorrow will be the first autocross for the year, one last fling for the old rubber before the new shoes are mounted up. I run a 2012 Boss 302, it’s 444 hp is more than double of most Fox Mustangs and has all the reliability of any vehicle. The song it pitches on its way to a 7500 RPM shift is magical.
Love it! Been thinking about getting into autocross myself, seems like a real good time.
I’ve always wanted to make a Mustang work for me, but by the time I could afford one, there were no more hatchbacks and I just can’t make the trunk work for me.
I love the New edge, not quite as powerful as a new ecoboost but not much less economical and the the glorious sounds the 4.6 makes is a pretty alluring tradeoff, rock solid reliable, 87 octane friendly, simple enough to do your own work yourself, with a huge aftermarket to support it, and styling modern enough to have an identity of its own, but just enough identifiable tropes to be instantly recognizable as a Mustang, and the lack of refinement makes them feel sprightly and eager. They kind of fall into the “slow car fast” category these days. More modern Mustangs are like driving Town Cars in comparison to these, they’re better in every way and the retro ones offer strong nostalgia bait visually, yet they’re not as “fun”.
These were the Mustangs of my early teen years too so maybe it’s my own nostalgia talking though.
You said it! when I test drove a 5.0 Mustang a couple of months ago with cooling seats, I was completely blown away. Such a different world from this 20 year old ‘stang… I would absolutely love a 5.0 Lincoln though!
Im seeing a few of these late fox body ‘Stangs here of late the prices are eyewatering and the feeding cost is escalating rapidly but they are popular, Mustangs have gone from unobtanium to belly button cars now, well done those people @ Ford.
With all the love for the 80’s Fox-body ‘Stangs, it’d have been a decent idea for Ford to retro back to the 80’s for the next generation rather than keep making a pastiche of the 1969-1970 model for over 15 years (and more to come).
No laughing Dodge, you’ve spent 15 years making copies of a car that only existed for 4, and really sold well maybe 1 ½ of those years.
One could make the argument “Why make a wholesale change when the sales are still good?” but it’s practically a safe bet once the sales do drop off the Pony may head to the glue factory due to the lack of platform sharing. Any some point though– likely with no warning– they’ll find out anyone wanting a new one can easily find a not-bad used one that looks practically the same.
A new generation of Mustang is on the way, based on the platform used by one of Ford’s best seller, the Explorer. Before you cry blasphemy, that platform was designed for underpinning a car, the Continental. Unfortunately the shift in the market and the poor sales of the Fusion based Conti meant that it was canceled right before it was due to go to tooling.
Using an existing truck platform is probably the only way Ford could keep a RWD Mustang in production. There’s just not enough volume to develop a dedicated RWD Mustang chassis. It’s otherwise going to be a FWD coupe, and we all know how that went with the Probe decades ago.
And while purists might decry an Explorer-based Mustang, it’s really now worse than Ford calling their new BEV a Mustang Mach-E.
The Foxbody 5.0 GTs and LX 5.0 of the mid ’80’s were the first of the reborn American performance cars. For quite a few years the Mustang GT was either the quickest car or a match for any other car, even more expensive competitors. This established the Mustang as the top dog and that reputation carried on through the years that the Mustang was weaker than the newer 5.7 Camaros. I just read a twenty year compilation of Mustang road tests this morning. I will give Ford credit for steady improvement and for sticking with the Mustang when the Camaro disappeared. The Mustang received high praise for it’s comfort, practicality and improved handling during the SN95 era. The basic 4.6 ( just 281 CID!!!) just couldn’t crank out the power like a 350 cid Chevrolet.
Mustangs have become an acquired taste for me. Back in 1969 &70 I lusted after the Mach One. Unfortunately I never bought one when they were cheap and plentiful, though my first car was a ’66 289 four speed coupe. Though Foxbodies and SN97s were popular with my co workers I didn’t get the urge to buy one until the S197 debuted in 2005. In 2007 I bought a V6 coupe which I’ve since passed on to my daughter. I satisfied my V8 desire with a ’96 GT convert bought in 2009. I was initially not that impressed but the thing has really grown on me. I was considering a newer post ’15 model, or a ’13 or ’14 as I like the retro design cars and these have the new Coyote V8. A week ago I bought a really nice ’06 GT convertible. I must admit that I prefer these early retro cars the most. I’ve pretty much a real Mustang fanboi now.
I have a soft spot for the Mustang GT. My friend had a 97 and it was the first manual I had successfully driven for more than a shuddering 10 feet. Before that I had attempted to drive my brother’s 93 Escort Wagon with no success.
Regarding the dome light, yes it should come on when the doors are opened. Not sure which dome light is used in those but Ford has a couple that have a 3 position switch, door-off-on. Those sliding switches can get finicky, or there could be a problem with wire to the switch from the doors.
The other remote possibility is that Ford was entertaining the idea of getting back into the police business with the Mustang and they incorporated a “dark mode” option for the Lighting Control Module and some well meaning person inadvertently activated it. On the Crown Victorias of that era dark mode is activated by connecting a wire to ground. The module needs to see that signal on boot, so to make it active you must depower the module. So someone under the dash sees the lonely connector hanging right by a ground tab and connects it. Nothing happens until the battery gets replaced or disconnected for what ever reason. The LCM reboots while seeing that wire grounded and now it won’t turn on the dome with the doors.
Latter cars moved to a programmable LCM and it is that function is now present in many Ford vehicles that one would not typically use for police use, my MKZ for example though to be fair they did offer a SSV Fusion.
That’s a nice score on the New Edge Mustang. I’ve had 2 New Edges (including the 2001 Bullitt we had in the mid 00s and repurchased it again) and an S197.
“Is it fast? By modern standards, not at all. But it sounds great, looks great, and gives me those Mad Max V8 growls.” You are absolutely correct in this take. It’s not fast by modern standards, but it still looks great and sounds amazing (with a Borla exhaust on it).
The New Edge is a great platform, lots of aftermarket parts for it. It would be a great car to take to your first autocross. I will be autocrossing the Bullitt after it goes through some rebuilding/restoration.
Great article. My first car was a 64 and a half mustang. Since then many fords including a reproduction cobra. I recently bought a 2003 blue convertible just for the sound. The simple workings of the car take me back. Putting the top down on a warm summer evening and listening to Jan and Dean. I’d go back to those days in a heartbeat.
Man mine is the same exact color 😍