5-slow Mustangs

[doug schellinger <dsac@domain.elided>]

I own both a 124 Spider and a 5.0 Mustang.  I love them both. The "5-slow"
is a 1985 model with some brake and suspension updates. It's been run hard
since I bought it in '91 and it does not owe me a dime. 

They are an interesting contrast. Where the Spider is big fun on a nice day,
and handles well on the road course, the Mustang simply eats it's lunch as a
road car, and for fun to drive fast.  It's pretty hard to beat a good old
American V8; unless it's a Ferrari V12 of course.

The Mustangs tend to fit more into the boy racer's club whereas the faster
but heavier Camaro and Firebird seem to attract the gold chain and automatic
transmission crowd.

Happily though, the Mustang does the dirty work as a summer driver, while
the Spider leads the year round life of luxury in the garage.

After owning both, if I had $3000 to spend on a motor, it would go to the
Mustang.  And at that budget I'd STILL have cash left over for that rear
disk brake kit. As for horsepower per dollar, Messrs Varnes and Seabolt hit
it right on the head. 

Dwight Varnes wrote:
>
>As for the performance stuff, it is far too easy to spend $2000 on an
>engine for your Fiat that will still not give you a 5.0 Mustang 0-60
>time. Spend that same amount of money on the Mustang, and you'll really
>be shaving some time off that run. It's a simple American thing that V8s
>are the preferred way to go fast, and everything is readily available.
>The few of us that care to do it to Fiats are a miniscule minority, and
>the marketplace reflects this. In europe, all the cars are powered by
>smaller engines, so building a Fiat isn't considered much stranger than
>doing up a Ford Escort.

James Seabolt wrote:

I could go out and buy an entire Mustang GT (like an 88 or 89) model for
about the same amount of money it would cost to build a reliable yet strong
Fiat motor. Using $3000 as a dollar amount.