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Ford Mustang 5.0
I finally got my 1979 Ford Mustang in 1986. I was living in Santa Barbara and my plan was to move to Los Angeles, where I would need a more reliable car as compared to my old Saab Sonett III. I still remember the first time that I saw the mighty Mustang. It was black with a black leather interior. It had the V-8 engine, which was rare for the first year. The previous owner had removed the 5.0 lettering from the sides. Back then, 5.0 meant nothing to people who were used to 289 and 427. The 5.0 was bored-out 289 and Ford quietly switched to liters to mask the fact that the engine wasn't as big. Many people resented this. I thought 5.0 sounded cool, and modern.
One of the first things that I did was to go to the Ford dealership and buy the 5.0 lettering. I went and got the FORD logo for the grill later. This was the first year for the new Mustang, which was based on the Ford Fairmont. In fact, this car was so early that it still had the Fairmont logo on the hubcaps and on the steering wheel. As far as I could tell, this car had never really been designed for a V-8 engine. The balance of the car was poor because of the big, heavy engine (as compared to the 4-cylinders that most Mustangs had at that time), and it wore out the front tires terribly. The California Highway Patrol were using black 5.0 Mustangs as pursuit vehicles at the time and every once in a while someone on the freeway would slow down when they saw my car in their rear-view mirror. Of course, my Mustang was just factory stock, the pursuit Mustangs were beefed up and designed to move, and they could!
As you can see, the logo in the middle of the steering wheel was for the Ford Fairmont. In fact, the whole interior was basically an upgraded Fairmont interior. The horn, oddly enough, was on the turn signal. Another bright idea from Ford! There was no indication at all on the dashboard that this was a Mustang. But when you got in it and drove it, you knew.
I was 28 in 1986 and buying the Mustang meant saying goodbye to my youth and the impractical little foreign sports cars that I had owned since I was 18. Owning an American car, with parts easily and cheaply available, made life a pleasure. The car may have looked unusual at the time, but it was just a Ford, made up of mostly Fairmont parts.
I really liked the idea of owning an American car. I even put whitewall tires on it. Here I am in Phoenix, Arizona in 1989. A black car with black leather seats is not a good idea in the desert. But the air-conditioning worked great!
I put the hatchback louvers on, which were the style at the time, and the FORD mud flaps. The mud flaps were just for fun. Here I am in Sedona, Arizona in 1992, the last year that I owned the mighty Mustang.