The Fox cars in the eighties had a better engine program. When they were stock. Spend equal amounts on the Camaro engine and the Mustang engine, and the Mustang sucks wind quickly. The advantage the Mustang had was the base price was about $7K cheaper. But the only thing that got looser, and rattled worse than a Camaro, was a Mustang.
Further, anything your aftermarket suspension on your Fox body could do, a Guldstrand F body could do better, and faster.
In the nineties, the Camaro engine surpassed the Mustang and stayed there. The handling of the Camaro was better as well.
The new Mustang is not really that impressive.
And Jack Roush is by far the biggest whining, crying, cheating chump motorsports has ever known. From his days getting stomped in NHRA all the way up to the current racing scene, Jack Roush has never changed. If he couldn't buy wins and championships, he cried until he got them, or he took his sorry whining carcass and went home whimpering with his tail between his legs. As far as how good a business owner and operator he is outside of racing, very few compare. But in the motorsports world, Jack Roush has done more damage to every series he's ever been in than any ten other competitors.
By the way, if you want to talk about "pony cars" in the late sixties, in the SCCA Trans Am series, the most dominant car was the Penske 69 Camaro Z-28, driven by Mark Donohue, and sponsored by Sunoco.
Let's talk drag racing. Ever see any Fox body Mustangs in Stock Eliminator? Not many. But the same generation F-body cars are winning races, qualifying in the top ten, and setting records. Ford hasn't had any measurable success in Pro Stock since Bob Glidden retired. And before Lee Shepherd got killed, Lee Shepherd beat Bob Glidden, Ford's most prolific winning driver, on a regular basis. In fact, when Glidden was in his prime, Shepherd not only beat him regularly, but Shepherd was also the only driver to ever win the NHRA and IHRA titles in the same year. And honestly, Grumpy Jenkins ran Jack Roush clean out of NHRA 40+ years ago. Today, the only way Ford gets a dominant car in Stock Eliminator is they paid NHRA to allow them to run a supercharged factory race car in a class it doesn't fit, with a bogus factor. And they screwed that up and got thrown out of the biggest race of the year for having the wrong pistons in their factory car.
Funny, in NASCAR, even with Ford pouring 5X the money into the Roush program than gM puts in all their teams, a Chevrolet won the title. Again. Where is Mark Martin, Ford's best driver in the past 25 years? Over with a Chevrolet team, having more success and more fun than he ever had with Roush and Ford, where he retired from a while back. More wins in NASCAR? Chevrolet. More titles? Chevrolet.
Ford has a great business model, especially compared to GM, the GM business model has sucked for decades, and now the the government runs it, it will only get worse. But GM has several technically superior products. Their LS series V-8 is less expensive, more powerful, and more reliable than the modular engine. The Hydramatic and Allison automatic transmissions have been superior for decades. The Duramax diesel is far superior to any diesel Ford has ever offered. The Ecotec 4 cylinder out lasts and out performs the Ford 4 cylinders. And by the way, if you combine the Chevrolet and GMC truck sales, and we all know they are the same except for trim, GM has outsold Ford in trucks on a regular basis for years. notice the Ford ads say they outsell Chevrolet, not that they outsell GM. Ford has done a far better job running their business. But GM makes a better product.
