My anticipation was fervid in the early 1990's when news first broke that Ford would update their very long-in-the tooth Mustang with something that hearkened back to the seminal Mustangs of the 1960's. After a couple of model-year delays, coincidentally or not, for Mustang's thirtieth anniversary for 1994, Ford pulled the wraps off this thing and I was reminded of so many childhood Christmases when I was heartbroken over not getting what I wanted for Christmas. Oh, don't feel bad for me; I've gotten over those slights and it's helped make me who I am today. Although, I've never gotten over the 1994 Mustang.
Code named "SN-95", these Ford Probe like Fox-body Mustangs lacked the visceral appeal that all other Mustangs had, save of course for the 1974-1978 Mustang II's, and was certainly lacking in comparison to GM's wonderful and fresh 1993 Chevrolet Camaro and to a lesser degree their Pontiac Firebird. I emphasize fresh since today's pony\muscle car designs are all retro or throwback inspired and haven't been wholly updated in more than a decade. They're so familiar they're almost not just stale, they're getting moldy.
All mostly forgiven come 1999 when Ford face-lifted Mustang injecting botox and collagen in the all the right places to create, my blog my rules, the Mustang they should have come out with back in 1994. Want proof I'm not alone with that sentiment? Mustang sales shot up nearly twenty-five percent year over year and they stayed at the 1999 level through the end of the SN-95's production run in 2004.
Rarely does a manufacturer improve on a design with subsequent updating but Ford's 1999 reboot of the SN-95 wasn't so much an updating but a "do-over". The '99 successfully blending cliched Mustang design cues with a healthy dollop of a modern-esque design ethos that obliterated the hokey, cartoon-ish retro non-sense. If anything, these cars looked like an up-to date 1969-1970 Mustang. Underneath the car still rode like it had square wheels but damn, it sure looked tough in a good way.
Our subject here is a 2003 not unlike a 2002 Mustang GT I came thisclose to purchasing years ago when my family and I lived in Dallas, Texas. A community whose weather is conducive to use of a sporty car as a daily driver. Well, on paper anyway.
A Mustang a Camaro lover could love? Imagine that. Well, frankly, I didn't much care for the front-end rehash GM did to my beloved 1993-1997 Camaro for 1998 and, subjectively, the updated '99 Mustang was the better looker of the two. That's saying something given how much I loved the 1993-1997 Camaro and disdained the 1994-1998 Mustang. Legend has it there was a federal mandate in the late 1990's for manufacturers to move away from multiple headlights to singular ones and that necessitated the unfortunate plastic surgery to one of my favorite domestic designs of the 1990's.
That didn't stop me from getting a Z28 instead of a Mustang in that wonderful fall of 2006; me eschewing the easier-to-live-with nature of the Mustang for the jackhammer explosiveness and styling wantonness of the Z28. Do I regret getting the Z28 and not the Mustang? Well, seeing that I didn't much care for that 2005 Mustang GT that I had recently, and it being a vast upgrade over the Fox-body "SN-95", suffice to say that as a daily driver, knowing me as well as I do, ultimately I know that I'd have all the same misgivings about it as a daily driver that I had about the Z28.
I have to respect anyone who drove older pony cars as daily drivers and regardless of what part of the country they're in. Nowadays, Mustang, Camaro and even the Dodge Challenger have rides as supple and compliant as sedans and crossovers but "back-in-the-day", all-practicality aside too, man, those were some kidney smashing, obnoxious cars best taken in small doses. Kind of like that super-hot party girl back in high school. She was so much fun but not someone you'd want to spend a lifetime with.
Although, like I said in my soliloquy about the day I got rid of my '05 Mustang, never say never. In the right part of the country with the right sized garage, I can't honestly say that I'll never own a 1999-2004 Mustang like this lovely, low-mileage and priced right GT. A 1993-1997 Camaro Z28 as well. Thing is, I won't make the mistake again of thinking either one is a suitable daily driver.
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