RE: Ford Mustang: UK Review

[Coatesy351]

unsprung said:

Chafford1 said:

unsprung said:

Interesting footnote about those few RHD Mustangs of long ago... There was no factory-built RHD for the third-generation (Fox Body) Mustang.

Any UK volume would have been tiny.

For example, during all years of Fox Body production, Ford of Australia supposedly had a total of 300 converted to RHD, locally. The conversions vary in quality and in appearance, even for identical cars imported simultaneously.

That is interesting. Were the Mustang IIs converted in Australia or were they built as rhd by Ford?

Good question. Perhaps one of our PH friends from Oz can help.


I doubt that RHD regular production has ever occurred in the US. My evidence for this is that Ford have made this claim in regards to the sixth-generation Mustang on sale today.

I can tell you that the Australian press are proud to note, on occasion, that Ford did no RHD conversions of any kind for Mustang... except for Ford of Australia. All other RHD conversions of Mustang -- UK, Japan, South Africa, etc., were outsourced to local works in each country. Also, in Australia, Ford of Australia did not perform the majority of Mustang RHD conversions (local works did). Just to keep the details nice and frothy.

Here is a link.( http://www.motoring.com.au/mustang-in-australia-40... ) Says only early mustangs were converted and then the Tickford conversions in the early 2000's. I have never read of early 80's fox body mustangs been converted in Aus other than private imports.

Edited by Coatesy351 on Monday 2nd May 19:03

[swisstoni]

300bhp/ton said:

swisstoni said:

In the old days Ford Europe had to make do with its own version of the Mustang. They called it the Capri and although they did their best it was always a pale imitation.

For oldsters like me it's almost unbelievable to see rhd Mustangs for sale at Ford dealers.

Nothing a history lesson can't cure

Call that a Mustang?
And what side was the steering wheel on?

Edited by swisstoni on Monday 2nd May 19:13

[LuS1fer]

Chafford1 said:

People seem to forget that the straight 6, 3.3 Auto and 4cyl, 2.3 Turbo Fox Mustangs were offered in rhd form in the UK as was the earlier Mustang II.


[/footnote]

The problem was that when Motor pitted the 5.0 Mustang Ii against the capri 3.0 V6, the Capri murdered it because, by that time, the Mustang was a very soft pimpmobile.

I had a 1981 Mustang Ghia 3.s straight six auto. in fairness, with its Michelin TRX metric tyres, it handled quite well but the 3.3 lump made a catastrophic 100hp on a good day (Even Vauxhall's arthritic Ventora 3.3 from 1968 wmade 128hp).
The Capri 2.8 that came along later was a vastly superior car....for Europe at least.
The Mustang was never a car designed for European tastes and it is only of late that US tastes have become more European.

[cerb4.5lee]

LuS1fer said:

I had a 1981 Mustang Ghia 3.s straight six auto. in fairness, with its Michelin TRX metric tyres, it handled quite well but the 3.3 lump made a catastrophic 100hp on a good day.

My Dad had a 1979 Mustang Cobra 5.0 manual back in 1980 and I always thought it was amazing and it totally sounded the business to me...sadly looking back 140bhp wasn't much at all though.

It was also running Michelin TRX tyres and I liked the fishnet Recaro's too, great memories.

[300bhp/ton]

swisstoni said:

Call that a Mustang?
And what side was the steering wheel on?

Edited by swisstoni on Monday 2nd May 19:13

Yes that is a Mustang and a very successful one. Know as the "fox body" and built from 1979 through to 1993. If you read the advert it says 'right hand drive'.

As a side note, the other pic was a US market LHD Mercury branded Capri.

[300bhp/ton]

cerb4.5lee said:

LuS1fer said:

I had a 1981 Mustang Ghia 3.s straight six auto. in fairness, with its Michelin TRX metric tyres, it handled quite well but the 3.3 lump made a catastrophic 100hp on a good day.

My Dad had a 1979 Mustang Cobra 5.0 manual back in 1980 and I always thought it was amazing and it totally sounded the business to me...sadly looking back 140bhp wasn't much at all though.

It was also running Michelin TRX tyres and I liked the fishnet Recaro's too, great memories.

Factory outputs were never that high. I think the most powerful 5.0 V8 fox stang had 235hp in a Cobra variant.

But I guess we need to keep some perspective. In 1979 here really weren't many European cars making the same sort of power for the same price. And the biggest thing with cars like the Mustang, it was always cheap and easy to get more power. 200-250hp from a 5.0 was relatively easy and cheap. Given the fact they weigh only around 1300kg or so. Means you could get some impressive performance for the time.

[unsprung]

300bhp/ton said:

Yes that is a Mustang and a very successful one. Know as the "fox body" and built from 1979 through to 1993. If you read the advert it says 'right hand drive'.

As a side note, the other pic was a US market LHD Mercury branded Capri.

It's an interesting chapter of the Mustang story, those fox body RHD cars. But I reckon it's worth reminding ourselves that those were not factory RHD cars. There is no "one" type of RHD fox body -- because conversions were done by a range of works garages in a number of countries.

Following a link provided earlier in this thread, I found an English chap referring to some of the RHD fox body conversions as "crude." How many of these mixed-bred fox bodies were there in Blighty? 200? 300?

Surely that is a different world to the global Mustang -- factory LHD and factory RHD -- on offer today. The corporate folks at Ford seem to feel this way; they're declaring the sixth-generation Mustang as the first-ever RHD built Mustang. Maybe they need to add an asterisk to that claim. But, heck, given the stark difference between then and now, I'll allow Ford this claim.

About the Mercury Capri:

The US car was built in Germany. It never received the largest engines. Moreover, the US engines were eventually detuned for reasons of pollution control. The US cars were given catalytic converters and heavy, 5-MPH-impact bumpers.

At the time, and up to and not including the Mustang II, few Americans would have compared the Mercury Capri favorably to the Mustang.

Talk in this thread of a UK-spec Ford Capri will have resonance for folks in the UK, but Americans had a different experience with that car. And they would make no such comparison.

[bennno]

ash73 said:

It's interesting this car seems to get a positive reaction from other people. I've had two Caterhams a green & yellow classic which everyone loved and a red R300 which got a mixed reaction, and a 911 which attracted evil glares from nearly everyone; it's the one thing that puts me off buying another sports car. I'd feel a bit of a prat sitting in traffic in a yellow Mustang with go-faster stripes, but the gunmetal grey one on the previous page looks fab.

Has anyone had any negative reactions from other road users?

Not even in a bright orange one with black wheels and roof, gets a universal thumbs up from kids, ladies, blokes. O

[Ozzie Osmond]

ash73 said:

Has anyone had any negative reactions from other road users?

Trust me, you ain't gonna drive very far in anything flashy without getting some derision from the tiny penis halfwits. Just remember, you're driving a brilliant car - and they aren't.

[MuscleSaloon]

LuS1fer said:

Chafford1 said:

People seem to forget that the straight 6, 3.3 Auto and 4cyl, 2.3 Turbo Fox Mustangs were offered in rhd form in the UK as was the earlier Mustang II.


[/footnote]

The problem was that when Motor pitted the 5.0 Mustang Ii against the capri 3.0 V6, the Capri murdered it because, by that time, the Mustang was a very soft pimpmobile.

I had a 1981 Mustang Ghia 3.s straight six auto. in fairness, with its Michelin TRX metric tyres, it handled quite well but the 3.3 lump made a catastrophic 100hp on a good day (Even Vauxhall's arthritic Ventora 3.3 from 1968 wmade 128hp).
The Capri 2.8 that came along later was a vastly superior car....for Europe at least.
The Mustang was never a car designed for European tastes and it is only of late that US tastes have become more European.

There was nothing else like V6 Capri's in the UK back in the day! Hard to believe the Mk1 came about in 1969 with around 130 bhp and a genuine 120 plus mph top speed. I had pretty much all V6 Capri's - S, RS, Injection, really loved them all. Every now and then a Mustang used to come up in the local classifieds which would be tempting enough to take a view, but in reality virtually all of the 70's ones were pretty undesirable things. Remember viewing a '71 Sportsroof and a '73 Grande - no way would I have ever wanted to own one, pretty awful. Not in any way 'sporting' at all compared to the Capri's. A friend had a later RHD Mustang II Ghia which he actually quite liked, but you could not believe that a 302 could be so slow! Now what Ford should have really have done all along was drop a hot 302 into the Capri and sold that!

[300bhp/ton]

MuscleSaloon said:

There was nothing else like V6 Capri's in the UK back in the day! Hard to believe the Mk1 came about in 1969 with around 130 bhp and a genuine 120 plus mph top speed. I had pretty much all V6 Capri's - S, RS, Injection, really loved them all. Every now and then a Mustang used to come up in the local classifieds which would be tempting enough to take a view, but in reality virtually all of the 70's ones were pretty undesirable things. Remember viewing a '71 Sportsroof and a '73 Grande - no way would I have ever wanted to own one, pretty awful. Not in any way 'sporting' at all compared to the Capri's. A friend had a later RHD Mustang II Ghia which he actually quite liked, but you could not believe that a 302 could be so slow! Now what Ford should have really have done all along was drop a hot 302 into the Capri and sold that!

That's probably a little harsh on the Mustsng and a bit rose tinted on the Capri's. Let's not forget many UK & European power claims of that time were exaggerated. So the reality is, early 3.0 litre Capri's probably didn't make a real 130hp. Not by today's standards and were likely quite a bit more than 10hp down on the 5.0 V8's and a lot less torque. Not to mention if you had the 3.0 to US emissions standards it'd have been even more down on power.

I don't know top speeds of those cars, but I wonder if they really were 120mph cars.

As for the Mustang II's. I think it's easy to hate them, they aren't pretty (although look a lot nicer in person) and most of us are not American or from that time period. But contemporary reviews were generally favourable to good. And they were some of the best selling Mustangs, selling 1.1 million, yes 1,100,000 of them in 4 years or so. Hasn't it taken Mazda 17 years to manage this sort of sales success with the MX-5, just to put it in comparison.

And let's not forget, the Mustang II was never intended to be a muscle car. It was deliberately downsized and aimed at a different market, at a time of mpg concerns, emissions and insurance. And plummeting pony car sales.

Google suggest the first 1975 140hp V8 models did 60mph in about 10 sec and 110mph. Which sounds pretty reasonable for a 2+2 of that time period.

[skyrover]

unsprung said:

At the time, and up to and not including the Mustang II, few Americans would have compared the Mercury Capri favorably to the Mustang.

Talk in this thread of a UK-spec Ford Capri will have resonance for folks in the UK, but Americans had a different experience with that car. And they would make no such comparison.

Yep... most Americans thought the Capri (and the Sierra) were crap, hence they flopped badly in the USA.

[Pommygranite]

People drop their load now talking about the Capri but 30 yrs ago it became a bit of a joke here in The UK.

[swisstoni]

Pommygranite said:

People drop their load now talking about the Capri but 30 yrs ago it became a bit of a joke here in The UK.

1986? Not really. I had a 2.8i at the time and it was one of THE cars to have.

[ZP]

The Capri driver then was the equivalent of the Audi / BMW / RR driver now.

What was the old joke - What's the difference between a hedgehog and a Capri driver...'?

[ZP]

You don't know the punch line?

[DonkeyApple]

ZP said:

The Capri driver then was the equivalent of the Audi / BMW / RR driver now.

What was the old joke - What's the difference between a hedgehog and a Capri driver...'?

They were certainly always a 'spivs' car. The chap who's shirt was darker than his tie or socks lighter than his shoes and everything had a sheen.

I think you also had to be called Barry, Kev or Tel and have a job in 'this and that' to be allowed to buy one.

[J4CKO]

LuS1fer said:

Chafford1 said:

People seem to forget that the straight 6, 3.3 Auto and 4cyl, 2.3 Turbo Fox Mustangs were offered in rhd form in the UK as was the earlier Mustang II.


[/footnote]

The problem was that when Motor pitted the 5.0 Mustang Ii against the capri 3.0 V6, the Capri murdered it because, by that time, the Mustang was a very soft pimpmobile.

I had a 1981 Mustang Ghia 3.s straight six auto. in fairness, with its Michelin TRX metric tyres, it handled quite well but the 3.3 lump made a catastrophic 100hp on a good day (Even Vauxhall's arthritic Ventora 3.3 from 1968 wmade 128hp).
The Capri 2.8 that came along later was a vastly superior car....for Europe at least.
The Mustang was never a car designed for European tastes and it is only of late that US tastes have become more European.

Very good point about tastes, American driving can be very different to ours, in terms of the journeys people do as we run out of land before they get to the end of their drive so what is great fun here is a hyperactive pain in the arse when you are doing a 1200 mile round trip, plus, tastes are different, they dont usually seem to be in the massive hurry that we are a lot of the time.

Plus cars arent quite such a major purchase in a lot of cases, we may deem a Chevy Malibu crap compared to a 5 series which is a similar but they cost about 14 and a bit grand ($ 21,000) where a 5 series is £35,000 and it will do broadly the same job, of course you can get the BMW in the US but for 14 grand, the domestic option is a lot of solid, comfy and quite adequate car for the price we get to pay for a 1.2 litre hatch.

The Mustang wont be for everyone but its definitely more acceptable to European tastes than it ever has been, and it may not be quite as good as a BMW 15/20 grand more expensive, but it isn't a BMW (or other German), it is something different, nothing wrong with BMW's, but they have become a bit ubiquitous.

I think weirdly, the Mustang, despite being a Ford is classier, cant see rented ones being battered round town centres anytime soon, ditto the Focus RS, they seem, at least when new to be more enthusiast owned.

[MuscleSaloon]

swisstoni said:

Pommygranite said:

People drop their load now talking about the Capri but 30 yrs ago it became a bit of a joke here in The UK.

1986? Not really. I had a 2.8i at the time and it was one of THE cars to have.

Agreed. They were always well respected in the UK in V6 form. When I first got in to them you could still buy a good 3.0S fairly cheaply, which flat out would keep up with the new breed of GTi's that cost 10 times the price. Pretty much any old V6 Capri would show 130 on the speedo given enough road.

The best of the Mk1 V6 Capri's are now £30K cars. The best of the Brooklands are now £30-£50k cars. They generate way more interest and higher prices in the UK than Mustangs of the same era.

[skyrover]

MuscleSaloon said:

The best of the Mk1 V6 Capri's are now £30K cars. The best of the Brooklands are now £30-£50k cars. They generate way more interest and higher prices in the UK than Mustangs of the same era.

SSShhhhhh