Thunderbird Mustang

[Masherbrum]

  If you read carefully it states the stang is a 2 seater only,removeal of the rear seat tray would shorten the stangs floor pan about 12 inches!

  It certainly looks like "ford" altered the floorpan on this 1,even the rear quarter "seems" sculpted. I wouldnt say it's anything like a Zcar though,just a Fox floor pan that was altered. I've seen them do something similar before,anyone remember the EXP,a shortened escort in disguize.

   

It is tubbed for the 22's.   The rear quarter has been sculpted to accommodate said wheels and tires.  I read it, but took exception to being even remotely compared to a pos nissan.   They look nothing alike, from any angle.   

But the Red stripe going from the hatch to the rockers, makes for a perfect deception of perception.

[gyrene81]

             

[Zacherof]

Hmmm as a squid, I like the AF model better. It come in blue

[icepac]

Been using this one to test and fix the dyno at work.

Not really feeling the color or interior motif.

In case you're wondering about the connection, the second picture is there to explain.

[5PointOh]

  If you read carefully it states the stang is a 2 seater only,removeal of the rear seat tray would shorten the stangs floor pan about 12 inches!

  It certainly looks like "ford" altered the floorpan on this 1,even the rear quarter "seems" sculpted. I wouldnt say it's anything like a Zcar though,just a Fox floor pan that was altered. I've seen them do something similar before,anyone remember the EXP,a shortened escort in disguize.



   

They would not cut out 12" of the floor pan.  They simply remove the rear seat and use a delete kit, much like they did on the Boss 302 Laguna Seccas.  What you are seeing is two very similar cars (minus rear quarter work, rear spoilers, and front bumper covers) that are two very different colors in different lightings. If they took out 12" of floorboard you'd have to cut the roof down as well. Didn't happen as the quarter windows are roughly the same size (also believe there is some picture compression here)

[morfiend]

 TBH, I don't know what "they" did to the car,I'd have to see the car in person to really know.

  The 12 inches I mention was an approximation of the size of the rear seat floor tray,they wouldn't cut it out they'd just not install it when the chassis went into the floorpan bucks.

   I built a few 100thousand cars over the years,8years 1 shift,half the production!  The roof wouldn't need cutting either but that's another story.   To me it looks altered,whether that's because of it being tubbed for those 22's I cant say for sure. It would be interesting to see the wheel base specs,that would tell you if it was shortened or just an optical illusion.

  I was only going off memory,the rearseat tray could be as small as 6 inches,it was 79 when I built my last fox floor pan car.



   

[Shifty]

Go on Morf, post us a picture of a Snowbird Mustang! 

[5PointOh]

If you look at the other pictures in the C&D article , I believe that it's the flaring of the fenders to accommodate the over sized wheels.  I'm doubting the vehicle was really "tubbed", the fenders are flared almost like a wide body kit. Wheel specs would only tell us is the car has a widened rear end housing, if they just used a a large offset, or both. To get a true idea of the vehicle you would need to know the distance from the A-pillar to the B-pillar at even given point to compare to a stock '13 Mustang.

In my previous job at Honda R&D Americas, we engineered multiple odd ball cars that we called "mules".  Basically we take a previous generation car/SUV and shove in different components for durability testing.  Also we did a lot of work in disguising vehicles for on road testing, depending on the angles you can make a car look very different compared to a stock bodied car.

79, never had a 79 Fox, but I've had a quite a few Fox cars, including my current 82GT Fox, a SN-95, and Gen 1 Lightning.  Currently looking for a 93-Up Ranger for a twin turbo 5.0L drag race truck.

This was my 89, 11.60s @137 all motor car...

[Rich46yo]

I bought my first car in '73. It was a '66 powder blue Mustang with a black vinyl top, a .289 under the hood, custom Pony interior...ect I found it on a used car lot in perfect condition, with 30,000 miles on it, for $600. This was my High School car and Ive had a love of Mustangs ever since. Unfortunately I dont have any pictures of it "crashed it drag racing" but they never made a Mustang I didnt love.

Get a load of this monster http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/07/04/saleen-351-mustang-enters-production/?intcmp=features

[5PointOh]

In kind of the same way, bought my first Mustang in 95 when I turned 15 (Much to the dismay of my father; an avid Corvette fan and owner). Since then, I've probably had about ten of different Mustang, from basic street cars, SCCA/NASA solo prepped to drag cars.  Absolutely love them all, especially the new ones.  I'm just not sure FoMoCo could really top the current body style.