What more can I say about an '80's Mustang that I haven't said already? Good question. I'm only blogging about this mint condition '85 because I love it to death. And it reminds me of the 1983 Mercury Capri RS "bubble back" my wife had when I first met her. Sigh. It's times like this I wish we didn't have our Corvette.
Thank me later for sparing you the melodramatic details of when I first met my wife and I was impressed as hell that she was driving a "5.0". This is a serious car blog and it's all about the cars. Well, for the most part. Anyway, this being a 1985 Mustang GT, it is historically significant and worthy of being blogged about given that the '85 Mustangs were the last of the "5.0 H-O's" with carburetors. Big deal? Trust me. It was a big deal.
That fact lost on anyone who isn't an ardent fan of these cars but the switch to fuel injection on the "5.0 H-O" was a huge change and one that was not welcomed at first. Fuel injection was still in its infancy back then and the false starts and problems The Big Three had with it going back to the 1950's didn't bode well for it. Besides, Ford was doing a great job tweaking this engine adding carburetor barrels, bumping up compression, changing cams, pistons, exhaust and intakes until it made a heady 210 horsepower for 1985. Somehow Ford squeaked this through corporate average fuel economy and emissions regulations which were getting increasingly stringent. So stringent that there was no way they could be where they would need to be in the near future using a carburetor. Therefore, Ford didn't switch to fuel injection because they wanted to; they had to.
The only thing with these cars is that if you got it with the "real 5.0", they only came with manual transmissions. I'm man enough to admit that as much as I enjoy driving and I can handle a stick, given a choice, give me an automatic. That's a five speed, by the way. My wife's car had a four speed; for 1983 Ford was transitioning between transmissions. Starting in 1984, Mustang GT's did come with automatics but the 5.0 you got was the "centrifugal fuel injection" engine you'd also find under the hood of Grand Dad's Mark VII. CFI was a batch fuel injection system similar to GM's throttle body injection system where one injector was mounted where the carburetor was. Fuel and air was mixed together "up there" and then sucked down on a torturous journey through the intake manifold to the cylinders. For 1986 the "HO" got port fuel injection that injected fuel into each cylinder individually.
Look at me brattling on and on here when I thought I had nothing more to say. Well, when you love something or someone you'll always find something to talk about. This gorgeous little gem is for sale in Toledo, Ohio with a fairly high asking price of $10,500. Here's the listing. But look at it this way - you could spend less for one and dump the money you didn't spend into it or buy a complete car right from the get go. Up to you. But still do your best in negotiating and make me jealous and get it for less than $9,000. Good luck.
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