In 1976 the new Volkswagen rabbit broke Mustangs fastest to
one million sales record. It was around this time the Ford began to design the new Mustang. In 1979 when the new mustang came
out it was called the fox body. This model was meant to combat the rising sales of the rabbit and according to Mustang,
the complete story by David NewHardt and Randy Leffingwell, the designers of the mustang were thinking, "What could they
use to chase a rabbit, they wondered? Throughout Dearborn, what Ford people had heard howling in their imagination was the
fox" (257).
In 1979 OPEC used the Iranian Hostage Crisis to raise oil
prices. California institutes odd-even gas rationing based on the last digit of your license plate. Despite the rising oil
prices, the sale of the new mustangs went up by 150,000 cars. In 1980 Ford had to debore(make their engine smaller) their
V8 in order to meet fuel economy restrictions. By 1981 gas prices reached $1.35 per gallon which is approximately
$2.30 in today. In 1982 Ford was able to put the bigger engine back in the mustang and still meet the EPA's standards. During
its hiatus the Mustang's sales dropped drastically. In 1983 the government released their ban on convertibles mostly due to
the fact that people were cutting their cars to make them convertible. Doing that is more dangerous then factory installed convertibles
so the government went with the lesser of two evils. In 1984 Ford installed fuel injection systems in place of carburetors on
the mustangs. They also equipped the Mustangs with ECUs. Both of these changes play a major role in Ford's pursuit of
ecologically conscientious performance. (For more on Carburetors, Fuel injection, and ECU please view their respective pages)
These changes mostly occurred when they did because Ford failed to pass the mandated CAFE standards that year. In 1991 airbags
became an option in the mustang .
From 1985-1993 Ford began developing on the new ecofriendly
technology they put in the Mustang. With the help of Mazda; Ford even began to develop a new front wheel drive turbo charged
vehicle to appear as the next generation of Mustang. When people found out that the next generation of an American
Icon was being developed in Japan people were outraged. Due to the negative feedback of the people Ford decided not to
make the car the new mustang but release it as a new car altogether. This car was called the Ford Probe. People
were saying I rather have a V8. Ford continued to develop their 5.0L engine and by the end of the fox bodies' career, it had
gained 110horsepower.
