I
f you were stranded on a
desert island with only one
Mustang, what would it be?
The question is always good to
start the opinions flowing. But for
Steve Freedland, the Fox-body is
the one.
“I’ve owned many Mustangs
over the years,” Steve says. “I’ve
had SN-95s; I had the new Edge; I
48 FOXMustangMagazine.com
even had an ’03 Cobra. But for
some reason I always go back to
the Fox-body style.”
Hey, the man knows what he
likes. How can you beat the funfor-the-money factor, the oceans
of great styling and performance
parts available, and the rush of
putting your foot all the way into
a healthy 5.0 V-8? Ford put extra
kick in its engines dating all the
way back to the 1930s. So a
powerful Mustang engine is a
Ford tradition going back to the
Depression era. In fact, we
wouldn’t be surprised if that old
Ford V-8 is what lifted the country
out of the Depression.
But back to the matter at hand.
Steve was looking for the right
Mustang, doing all of the right
things, checking Craigslist regularly,
along with the Auto Buyer magazines and other usual sources. But
try as he may, the right car just
didn’t surface. Funny how sometimes the more you look, the less
you find. So to find the right car,
there was only one thing left to
do — quit looking.
Sure enough, as Steve points
out, that did the trick.
“I gave up the search for a
while, until one day one of my
clients told me about a friend
who had a ’92 Mustang that he
might be interested in selling.”
OK, now we’re getting somewhere. “The car had never been
in an accident and had under 100K
on the original motor, but it was in
rough shape.”
Not having examined the car in
person, Steve did the only reasonable thing.
“I purchased the car sight
unseen and had it shipped to
Lakeland [Florida],” he says,
admitting it was a move that did
not thrill his wife. But the course
had already been set. After Steve
took a look at the car, he wasted
no time in starting its refurb. He
began with the interior.
“I removed the seats and took
them to a local shop to have them
reupholstered,” he says. “Then I
replaced the carpet.” The black
convertible top was next, along
with fresh weatherstripping. Out
came the cheapie stereo, replaced
by a modern unit with all of the
latest features.
Fortunately, the sheetmetal was
straight and solid, needing only
cosmetic attention. Steve didn’t
care for the luggage rack on the
car, so he replaced the entire lid