Another day, another pristine Fox body up for grabs. This 1988 Ford Mustang LX comes with the preferred 5.0L V8 paired to the also-preferred manual transmission. Of course, the real attraction is the fact it has only 12,700 original miles on the clock with beautiful paint and a near-perfect interior. The LX with the hatchback body may be the more common design compared to the notchback, but nice ones like these with the V8 and without the GT bodykit are hard to find. Check it out here on craigslist with an asking price of $29,995 and located in Huntington Station, New York.
For years, I defended the GT as being quintessentially 80s in its design, interpreting the factory air dam, side skirts, and integrated rear hatch spoiler as must-haves when shopping for a Fox body. But the more I see of the LX, the more I realize this design was closer to the ideal, as still looks relatively “light” and athletic, unencumbered by the aero add-ons. The LX always seemed like the sleepier choice, too, allowing car shoppers to get the preferred V8/manual combo they sought without having to step up to the high-zoot GT trim. As you can see in this photo, the paint is beautiful and the wheels haven’t lost a bit of their luster,
Now, I’ll freely admit to not being able to tell leather from vinyl with a quick, passing glance, but I do recall that the Mustang LX and GT convertibles were the only models available with leather sport seats. An LX like this could step up to vinyl buckets for a cool $40, if I’m reading the options list correctly, and while it’s not leather, it still presents quite well. Of course, it helps that this Mustang has such low mileage; who knows what condition it’d be in if it had seen 100,000 miles or more. Black with red pinstriping over a gray vinyl interior is a hard combination to fault; it looks sharp all around.
The engine bay is spotless, as predicted, and it’s encouraging to see a seller that doesn’t just rely on the low mileage to sell the car for him. This individual has gone to great lengths to see that the Mustang presents as well as you’d expect a time capsule to look, and while it’s hard to say whether the seller is a dealer or a private individual, it doesn’t really matter with a car like this. You’re sure as heck not going to get a deal on a car this clean, so the only question is whether the Fox body of your dreams looks like this and if you’re willing to pay $30,000 for it.
Very nice. I agree Jeff, the “light”, athletic, clean look of the LX has proven to be very popular today. This one in black with the gray interior and the red stripes looks great. I’m not sure if these have gotten to $30k yet, but if not they are not far from it.
I’m always curious of the history of a car like this. Did the owner drive it 12k miles over the first year or two, then essentially put it into long-term storage? Or has it been a show car/ cruiser since day 1, getting a few hundred miles each year in the process? Not that it really matters much, assuming the car is mechanically fine.
Tony DeFeo, who now has a YouTube channel called “Tony’s Garage,” bought a new ’87 that looked exactly like this, but without any options. Didn’t even have a radio. He wrote about racing it in Cars Illustrated. I recall he got it into the 13s.
…and here’s your link.
https://uncletonysgarage.com/2018/07/29/way-back-machine/five-liters-of-fury/
Had totally forgotten about the power of scanned images.
Haha! Thanks. My memory was pretty good. “Bone nasty little mind twister.” Heh. It ran a 13.9 after much massaging. Do we call a Honda Odyssey minivan a “bone nasty big mind twister?” They’re comparable in acceleration :-)
Any older, extremely low mileage vehicle like this Mustang always leaves me curious about back story as well. If I were interested in this car I would ask about the paperwork involving maintenance and service records. Older vehicles with unusually low mileage often have a maintenance history which matches the mileage and not the age. Many of the thirty-plus year old OE parts and systems on this Mustang are likely past due for refurbishment or replacement. Nice looking car though.
At that price, I would hope that the low mileage, single owner is well documented.
This sure seems like a lot of money for this car.
I had a couple 5l LX models in the mid 1990s and they were quick cars for sure. They do get a trifle hairy at very high speeds. My 1992 LX was white and had a sunroof and cloth seats.
It looked great with the 5 star pony wheels on it.
I sure hope that striping is pin striping and not painted on. If it is painted on that will definitely hurt the value of this car.