(first posted 5/25/2013) As you were growing up, you likely heard the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” to the point of tedium.
It’s sound advice that’s applicable to so many things in life. Cars that have had some life experience are certainly items that should never be judged by the superficiality of their exterior appearance.
Recently, JPCavanaugh ran a terrific piece covering model year 1979 (here) as part of his series on Indianapolis 500 pace cars. The Mustang you see above is one of roughly 10,000 examples that were made that year.
Oh, how the shrieks of disbelief can be heard all over cyberspace: “Somebody is just making that claim, Jason. Surely you aren’t falling for it!” In this case it’s not merely a claim, so let’s jump into what makes a ’79 Mustang a pace car instead of just another run-of-the-mill Mustang.
Let’s start with the outside.
All pace cars were painted in this color combination, which is certainly more tasteful than those of some of its predecessors. And yes, now you skeptics are saying, “Dude, the car you are showing us is red–can’t you tell the difference?”
Well, Earl Schieb paints cars everyday, so getting hung up on paint color is pointless. Let’s look at a few elements that are more difficult to change, including the door jamb.
See? The right colors! If you haven’t already guessed, this particular Mustang, which is owned by CC reader Jake, has been repainted. Although you can’t tell by these pictures, the paint was applied over the decals in some spots along the car. (Please note: This was done prior to Jake’s purchasing the car; he is much too smart to do something so silly.) Now let’s continue our exploration.
This particular pace-car replica is powered by a 302 cubic inch, 140-hp V8, one of 23,675,984,248 that Ford would ultimately build. Buyers of a 1979 pace-car replica could also opt for a 131-horsepower, 2.3-liter turbocharged four-banger. Of course, neither engine generated enough power to make an overzealous driver’s eyeballs sink into their head; it was 1979, after all.
Buyers of the 302 version could choose either a four-speed manual or a three speed automatic, but the 2.3 turbo was restricted to shifty people due to its unavailability with an automatic.
This particular example has had a wheel change. Like all pace-car replicas, it originally came equipped with TRX wheels and tires, making such a swap quite wise. The story of Michelin’s TRX tires can be found here.
Let’s look inside:
All the pace car replicas received Recaro seats up front…
and this pattern on both the front and rear seats (just don’t stare at it too long)…
and this nifty logo on the passenger side of the dashboard.
No one here at Curbside Classic is very geeky about cars being numbers-matching, decoding VIN tags or documenting whether a car optioned a certain way is one of however-many. That just ain’t our thing. However, this one’s an exception to the rule, so beware: This part of the essay is where numbers geeks will have very positive physiological reactions; for the rest of us, here’s something to elicit a different positive reaction.
Yes, that is an ID tag, also known as a “data plate” or “VIN tag” (please, don’t say “VIN number”–it’s redundant), might well be the first one ever pictured on Curbside Classic. Treasure it, as you won’t see them on here with any frequency!
So, what does this tag tell us? Let’s start at the top. It says “MUSTANG”, so we are good. Now, go down a line, to the number starting with “48”. The “48” indicates this is a pace car replica, and the last four numbers in the series indicate its birth order.
These cars were built in both Dearborn, Michigan and in San Jose, California. Interestingly, one source claims that due to the way the cars were denoted, it’s theoretically possible for two pace-car replicas that were built at different plants to have the same VIN. That could certainly make for a lively title-history search.
The Mustang was new-for-’79, and serving as the Indy 500 Pace Car was a terrific way for Ford to showcase it. Offering more interior space than the outgoing Mustang II (so couldn’t this be called a Mustang III?), the new ’79 Mustang had been designed by a Jack Telnack-led team. Built on the Fox platform that also underpinned the Ford Fairmont / Mercury Zephyr (as well as a host of other early-’80s models), the new Mustang was on average 200 pounds lighter than the previous Mustang.
Eventually selling over 330,000 units in its first year, the Fox-bodied Mustang was a car that seemed to get better as the 1980s progressed, as GT, SVO, LX 5.0 and Saleen versions were unveiled. Quite the versatile chassis, indeed.
So there you have it, folks, a genuine 1979 Ford Mustang Pace Car. As so many of these pace-car replicas are pampered, many kudos to Jake for driving his Mustang around the hills and curves of the Ozark Mountain foothills.
Cool car. Ford people like to call those plates “Buck Tags” or “BUC Tags” (Body Unit Control?). I’m one of the numbers geeks and love deciphering these things. Usually these are found screwed or stapled to the firewall, fender support or radiator support.
GM “cowl tags” or “Fisher Body Tags” are more my forte and consume much more of my time than they should.
I’m not sure what Chrysler people call their version but those tags seem to be the most thorough — tons of codes….like having a metal build sheet.
I too am a numbers geek. Chrysler calls theirs a fender tag. All the codes denote drivetrain, trim level, options, etc . If you have a build sheet, there is a breakdown of the said codes on the back, or books are available to decode the tag as well if you do not. I used to decode every Chrysler product I used to buy just for fun.
I agree – that was especially fun on my 1976 Dart Pursuit that had a long list of minor differences from civilian Darts of that vintage.
Some Chrysler special-build units such as those in certain police and taxi fleet cars had TWO tags. The second was to the right of the usual one and they shared one mounting screw between them.
Fords were not built in San Jose California … the plant was in neighboring Milpitas. It’s now a mall which has a few displays on the auto plant history. I toured the factory sometime before the Fox Mustang intro, as I recall Pintos, Mustang IIs and pickups on the lines.
Interesting, but why completely change the color of a pace car?
Might have been wrecked. That’s usually the first thing I think whenever I see a customized Corvette.
I think that shade of red is a color from a 1982 Mustang GT, which was essentially the same as the 1979 Pace Car (minus the Recaro seats, and a lot less expensive). Also note the chrome windshield surround (they’re black everywhere else on the car) and the missing radio antenna.
Actually the pace car style Recaros remained optional through 1983 on Cobras and GTs IIRC. Same pattern and all, they were even a very rare option(albiet with different patterns) on 80-82 Cougar XR7s if you can believe it.
From the brochure
That is surprising, never knew you could get proper buckets and a console in the box fox Cougar/T-birds. That’s 2 things I learned today.
The tag was on the radiator support of this Mustang. Whether it was wrecked or not is a good question; the under hood pics show the firewall in the original color as did the portions of the fender where it bolts on.
This is one with the 302 / 4 speed combination.
Very nice find. But please, now get to work and find us one of those 1980 GMC pickups with the monstrous Firebird decal on the hood. 🙂
I think that with as many of these as there are out there, one that gets itself beaten nearly to death (like this one appears to have been under its prior owners) might as well be painted up as cheaply as possible. Repro decals are probably fairly pricey, and there will always be a lot of really nice versions out there – likely cheaper to buy a nice one than to try to restore a rough one.
Gad, those seats would not be good for someone with motion sickness.
Well, if you were driving or riding, you didn’t have to look at the seats, so motion sickness wasn’t a worry. They were, however, sized and contoured for someone carrying not too many added pounds (which described me at the time). And they were, without a doubt, the most comfortable long-distance driving seats on any Ford of that period or for years after (only rivaled by the seats on the Merkur XR-7). The portion of the seat cushion that pulled out to provide longer thigh support was worth the price of admission all by itself.
“The portion of the seat cushion that pulled out to provide longer thigh support was worth the price of admission all by itself.”
Indeed! Even after Ford dropped the Recaro seat option the later Fox seats gained adjustable thy supports on LX 5.0s and GTs up until the SN95 came out. As did the Lear Sieglers used in the SVO.
Also I think you meant Mercur XR4 😀
Ford had those on the 95-97 Explorers, then cheaped out and dropped the good seats for some less comfy ones. (the thigh supports, but the seats themselves are very good)
One of the big reasons why I still love my elderly and frail ’95 Explorer, those seats!
It may not have been wrecked, the silver/gray color of this era didnt last very well from the factory. I have seen alot of cars and trucks with that paint color flaking off before they even had the vehicle paid off.
“…one of 23,675,984,248 that Ford would ultimately build.”
See, this sort of wild inaccuracy really bugs me. I have ten different leather bound reference manuals backed up by sworn affidavits from Henry II, Iacocca I and the ghost of Edsel that no more than 23,675,984,247 302s were ever produced. If we’re going to get into numbers on this site we have to get them right!
😉
Thank you for noticing my typographical error. It’s good to know you’re watching my back; as a huge advocate for accuracy – not some wild, random number punched into a keyboard – my appreciation cannot be expressed in words. 🙂
good lord, the V8 was a poor bargain. Just nine more HP for more than twice as much displacement? I imagine there was a greater difference in the torque department, but still.
The problem was the turbo was a lot more trouble-prone than a good ‘ole, anvil-solid, pushrod V8. Combined with the lack of grunt at low rpms, turbo sales were so slow that Ford would drop the Mustang turbo after 1984, except for the intercooled SVO Mustang (which was a whole lot more coin than a 5.0 V8 GT and would be gone after 1986).
The IC Turbo four would then only last a couple more years in the Thunderbird, making its final appearance in 1988.
Did Ford offer the full warranty on the early turbo four? I read a pre-launch preview the other day that suggested Ford was still hedging on that point when the turbo was announced.
One might say that because of less hp/litre, the V8 was “understressed” compared to the turbo, which means the latter was more critical to maintain properly, assuming it was otherwise engineered well, had parts within spec, & was built correctly.
It would be illuminating if some statistics wonk at Ford could tell us the relative number of warranty claims between the 302 & blown Pinto engines.
The turbo was very problematic, a condition that was remedied with the advent of computer controlled fuel injection. The base turbo was a great idea, but it took a ton of tinkering to make them run very well (water induction, re-curved advance, octane boost)…..and then the outcome was usually explosive.
I recall that the 2.3 turbo in early Mustangs had issues.
My 79 Cobra was built in May, 79 and I no issues during the time I owned the car. Fuel consumption was awful providing around 20 mpg on the highway with a small fuel tank making for a lot more fuel stops than I preferred.
I owned a 79 Capri RS with the turbo engine at the same time my future BIL had a 79 Stang with same engine. And another guy on the island with another one. After a year and a half all our cars had turbo failures. And Ford would NOT replace those defective units, Ever since then it soured me on Ford products. I am very sure they knew about it, but kept quiet.
Maybe 10 years ago a friend of a friend in the San Fernando Valley had one of these. Not in the same color but about in about the same, non-Concours condition as this one; and also a four-gear. The guy was a minor meth dealer and a major meth user. He used the parking lot of the local Taco Bell to hang out in his car for hours, hood popped, tinkering around with the engine (in that obsessive-compulsive way that speed-freaks have), blasting his stereo and generally making a nuisance of himself. Eventually the Taco Bell employees called the cops on the jumpy-looking gringo cluttering up their parking lot and making everybody nervous. The police who came to investigate the complaint found some of his favorite controlled-substance in the vehicle. Enough to be charged not with Possession but with Trafficking. I think he was sentenced to a couple of years. I do know he only did a few months before getting lucky with an early release when California’s prisons reached capacity and thousands of non-violent offenders were set free. No idea what happened to his Mustang. Entirely possible that both the car and its owner no longer exist.
Interestingly the whole pace car kit (cowl scoop, front fascia, rear spoiler, TRX wheels) wound up on the 1980 and 1981 Cobra, albeit with different decals and no 5.0 option. With the optional recaros you could effectively buy the pace car for another two model years. The 82 GT was similar as well but the Cowl scoop was substituted for the one year only 1979 Cobra scoop.
In December 1976, as an imminent engineering grad, I was invited to Dearborn for an all-day interview with Ford. My first time in Michigan … to a California boy, a lot about Detroit was pretty grim, and not just the weather. As far as I remember, I wasn’t asked to sign any NDA’s and had no idea about confidentiality practices (ethical or legal), so when I got home, I told my car-buff friends about seeing prototypes of an all-new platform, which seemed very innovative (ie European) for a domestic manufacturer in the 70’s. No one cared – they were more interested in 2002s, 510s or the new FWD Volkswagens. That platform turned out to be the Fox, and now almost 40 years later I think more car buffs care about the Fox Fords than about those sporty imported sedans of the ’70’s. At least here on CC!
In my opinion the black, orange and silver color arrangement of the pace car is well integrated into the lines of the Fox Mustang, and makes it appear lighter and longer than it does in one color.
Interesting observation. It appears that way to me also.
This is the era when Ford Australia ditched the V8 because it was less powerful than their l6.
In that era, the V8 wasn’t less powerful than the six (even with injection, the big six was down about 30 hp on the 302), but fewer and fewer people were buying the V8 because it was becoming punishingly expensive to run, between the petrol and the insurance.
I forgot about the Recaro option; now, I wish we could find aftermarket orthopædic seats that would fit my car: my wife says the factory seats are uncomfortable on long trips. One of those things you don’t find out during a dealer test-drive. We have Ekornes Stressless chairs in our house, & she loves hers. Very expensive though.
A landmark American car. It reversed the fortunes of the Mustang brand from the cartoon-like Farrah Fawcett Cobra II and King Cobra to a serious attempt towards what the Germans were doing with their small bore sports coupes. With apologies to the turbocharged Corvairs, it introduced turbo 4 cylinders to the masses and was one of the first attempts at the American idea of a lightweight turbo 4 delivering the power of the emissions strangled V8’s at the time. Neat integrated urethane bumper covers spelled the end of the hydraulic pistoned 5 mph tug boat-bumper. Recaro seats (optional), Marchal driving lights, metric wheels with Michelin TRX tires.
The Jack Telnack designed Fox body Mustang saved the name. But us Americans didn’t take to the 4 cylinder turbo like they did the 5.0 V8, a great engine in it’s own right. The turbo was hindered by a carburator and the electronic controls of it’s day. The SVO took the turbo to a whole new level of performance. Today, the V8 is again on the ropes and there is talk of a new Turbo 4 for the upcoming new Mustang. How fitting it would be to give it the SVO badge…
In those days I took my 1980 Mustang 2.3 4 and transplanted a 79/80 Turbo 4 along with the 4 speed manual transmission that was exclusive to the Turbo. A trip to the local Ford dealer for the 1980 hood scoop, along with the proper Ford TURBO emblems, a 1984 SVO exhaust, oversized Turbo 4 radiator and Koni shocks completed the transformation. How I miss that car! One day I say, I’ll get that SVO that I coveted those 30 years ago. It kinda hurts to see this car in the shape it’s in and one can only hope it can be resurrected.
I consider the 82 GT the beginning of the end of the Malaise era as its 5.0 was one of the first to have it’s HP rating to go up vs the previous year.
Yeah the 5.0 also got better and better, in both power AND economy from 82 onward, especially with the switch to efi. The 2.3 Turbo was a real powerhouse in the SVO but ultimately it was very expensive and the efficiency gap between it and the 5.0 was narrowing(not to mention the 1/4 mile performance gap). It would have needed some significant development to be a viable mill for the future, which never really happened as the Turbo Mustang concept was dropped in 1987 and the TurboCoupe’s successor, the SuperCoupe replaced it with the supercharged 3.8 V6.
I do love the 1979 Mustang, and really the whole “Fox chassis era” for the same reasons mentioned though. The current S197 Mustangs (05-now) to me are the bizzaro Mustang II. Both are ultimately cartoonish attempts at recapturing the original 65s greatness through blatant throwback design cues but in complete opposite approaches; The Mustang II trying to recapture the small secretary’s car, and the S197 was trying to recapture the big masculine musclepony. In a strange twist, both were initially powered by the Cologne V6!
The rumors swirling around the 2014 are interesting indeed. In addition to the “ecoboost” 4 cylinder powerplant, like the initial Fox there’s expected to be a major departure from the retro styling cues as well. Plus with the other various other changes like IRS(ok the Fox still was a solid axle but it’s multilink setup was still a huge improvement over the MII with it’s Hotchkis drive), it could turn out to be the next Foxbody. If it does it will share yet another parallel with the Fox; It’s chassis gets better with age.
One of the things I like about the Fox Mustang is that Ford didn’t feel constrained to endlessly try to replicate the 1965 styling. It looks a little dull now, but at the time it was a real step forward from the clumsy looking cars of the 1970s.
Great point, Glen. It seems Ford really did start with a clean sheet in the redesign. The only thing vaguely in common with the marque were the tri-bar rear tail lamps, a clever nod to the ’69 tail lamps (if you look hard enough)! The advertising for the day touted it as America’s Sports Car. Maybe some would get a chuckle out of that, but it wasn’t long before Ford was racing this car in various divisions in motorsports. When the Special Vehicle Operations group came on board, it was a real sign for me that these guys were serious in their intent.
I hope the original Fox body Mustangs get their due as a collectible classic. I suppose the only thing out of character in the understated elegance of the design and the engineering of the car would be the Cobra snake decal for the 79-81 Cobra Mustang. A continuation of sorts of that horrid 78 King Cobra hood decal. With that too, being a competitor of the Firebird Trans Am Screaming Chicken hood decal….
The 82 Mustang GT and the 84-86 Mustang SVO put an end to that nonsense!
I am particularly intrigued by this because this was a Lee Iacocca car – he was fired by Henry Ford II in July 1978, long after the design for this car was frozen. This indicates that he was OK with a thorough rethink of one of the most seminal cars of his career. The late Iacocca Fords (the Foxes mostly, but also the Panthers from an engineering perspective) were quite progressive for their time.
Of course, the same could be said for the late Iacocca Chryslers – the LH cars debuted at the 1992 NAIAS before Iacocca’s retirement, despite being heralded after the fact as proof that Chrysler had finally broken free of the Iacocca years. Allpar says that Iacocca was championing the LH’s cab-forward design paradigm within the company as early as 1988. https://www.allpar.com/corporate/cab-forward.html
Prior to the Fairmont and Mustang American cars always had those puffed out doors that sounded hollow and rattled with age. Fox was the first clean sheet downsize and it showed in space efficiency and weight savings.
One reason I liked the Pace Car so much was because they hid the awkwardly shaped rear quarter window in the paint scheme. I also liked the tasteful add-on parts like the hood bulge and front air dam (missing on the feature car).
It would be worth doing a low budget restoration on this car. I wonder how long it took to lose its TRX rims.
What a rare find; I imagine most of these have been either stored away since new or fully restored.
The ’82 Mustang GT I wrote up last year had the very same “op art” interior and Recaro seats: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/car-show-classic-1982-ford-mustang-gt-welcome-back/
Not sure if the ’79 302 pace car had the variable venturi carburetor. My ’79 302 Capri did, and except for the choke enrichment thermostatic orifice tapered rod thingy that always jammed, it ran really well with that carb. Tweaking the diaphram and fuel metering rods improved gas mileage from 14 to 19 mpg on the street. The power would dive at 4000 rpm until I swapped a “marine cam” which was perfect with the automatic and the really, really, tall rearend gears. I ditched the TRX wheels for meatier 225’s and kept the car until 1985 then bought a new 4-bbl GT mustang.
Why take the time to do an article such as this, but post a heap as representative of the original car when so many nice ones are still around?
Note to readers:
The 1979 Mustang Hatch weighed in right around 2800lbs.
The 302 which was rated at 140hp (don’t take your eyes off the ball here) was also rated at 250ft-lbs of torque at 1800rpm.
2800lb cars with 250ft-lbs of torque can fly in the right hands.
Car and Driver noted a 0-60 time of 8.3 for a C4 automatic. Unfortunately I can not find any information about the rear gearing for this test car, but it was probably in the 2.73:1 range. Ford was not yet back in the performance game, but they would get there a few years later with this platform. As it stood, it was a great starting point for a fine road car.
Next is the TRX handling package which was light years ahead of anything else Ford had ever offered. Although the wheels themselves didn’t age very well, this suspension put the Stang in WS6 territory (Opinion).
A very good friend of mine bought a brand new 79 Mustang V8. The car was pretty quick and handled like nothing else. We simply put a 4 barrel carb with a performer intake on the thing and it would run with anything else on the road at the time. Full throttle upshifts from 1st to 2nd layed serious rubber on the ground.
Unfortunately I moved out of town before he put a 3.55:1 posi unit in the car.
These were great cars for the time, and good examples have held their value very well.
Our site works a little differently from a lot of the glamour/collector/fanboy sites for old cars out on the internet. We write about what we find. This piece followed an earlier piece about Indy Pace Cars (https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-indianapolis-500-pace-cars-part-7-1975-79/) and when Jason found this car, he was able to ID it as one of the Pace Car replicas that Ford produced that year. The whole point about Curbside Classic is to find and celebrate the stuff that is out in the real world. There are lots of places where someone might do a puff-piece with loads of pictures of someone’s pristine 79 Pace Car Mustang. But there is also nothing wrong with giving a little love to this old heap, that has plainly not been treated very well over its life. Jason was sharp enough to see something interesting in this one and to share it with the rest of us.
I don’t think that many of us who write, read or comment here would disagree with your assessment of the 79 Mustang’s impact. It was a watershed car for Ford, and for American performance cars in general.
Many of the comments above mention the rear quarter window as being odd looking.
It was and still is one of my favorite parts of the car. It’s what got my attention in the first place and what was missing on the trunked version. (Ford called it a sedan but because it has two doors and not four I refuse to call it that) The hatch is so much better looking in my opinion. Losing the sharp angle just kills the tension and changes angular into just boxy. They are not the same thing. A Reliant K-car is boxy. A hatchback Stang is sexy.
Those wheels on the featured car are terrible looking. Cheap and chrome with generic little holes that don’t go with any of the design cues of the car. The TRX wheels, impractical as they were, looked fantastic, from the shape to the polished aluminum finish, they were high style. The design worked with the four lugs they used to save 50 cents per car. In ’88 my first car was an ’82 hatch with the turbine-style hubcaps. I was so naive that when I bought it I thought they were rims. Those even look better than those cheap chromies.
I will always be a fan of these Mustangs. They were sharp and handled well. Eventually they got fast. They were original, unlike the copycat modern ones.
My favorite fox is actually the Capri, with it’s sexy side bulges; but not the roundy hatch thingy which ruined the angular look. I like roundy and I like angular, but not together, just as I like sex and collecting Matchbox cars, but not at the same time.
As usual, I have strong opinions and therefore I must be right because it is what I think.😉
An outfit called LMR (Late Model Restoration) that specializes in ’79-later Mustang parts sells a very neat wheel that looks just like the distinctive TRX wheels on early Fox Mustangs, but actually is sized to fit common 16-inch tires. Real TRX wheels are unloved because the metric tires that fit it cost a fortune now (and haven’t been upgraded much over the years).
I went to their website and saw them. They look great on the featured car.
Now I just need a Mustang again to put them on.
…
So many “pace car replicas” over the years varied little from the standard car other than the paint job, decals, and badges; this one actually had many distinct features (including IIRC a different grille than any other ’79 Mustang, though it would be reused on non-pace cars from 80-82). I think it was actually going to be called the Mustang III at one point – at least that’s what the car mag were reporting.
Git yer mullets ready. It’s cars like this that gave America it’s reputation for inefficient, flaccid cars.
The Fox Mustang? Hardly. People ate these up upon their debut, large in part to how un-American they were relative to other domestics of the era. It looked European and ultra modern next to the Mustang II. It drove reasonably well. It reintroduced and practically started the real power war in American cars with the ’82 GT 5.0. Flaccid? See the 1982 F-bodies from GM. That’s a “mullet” mobile, not this. Remember, this Mustang lasted to 1993, and still sold well, rightfully so. In fairness they still had crap reliability (Mom’s ’79 never was cured of caurburator/won’t start issues during ownership), but that has nothing to do with the dynamics of the car. Those were modern and spot on.
+1.
I like the ’82 Camaro, but…yeah…
I actually owned one of these…a turbo/4spd as my first car. It was also painted over a solid color. At the time, I had no idea what it was but my friend had an 84 GT and being it looked similar, I just assumed they made a GT in 79 as well. Once I realized what it was, I was at once thrilled and angered! lol
The turbo was a dog…even for 1988. It was still fun though to see that turbo light up on the dash and here that little whistle. The turbo versions also had a TURBO emblem on the hood scoop and a TURBOCHARGED emblem on the dash next to the Indy emblem. Those Recaros held you in nicely.
Here’s a pic from back then. Please disregard the mullet and black Reeboks.