I've been searching for a straight and unmodified 1986 Mustang GT for over a month and am having trouble locating one. Are these finally getting rare? Most of them I'm finding are poorly repainted, abused, full of tacky aftermarket add-ons, and sporting "phat" rims. The only straight bodies seem to be the four-bangers.
I owned an 86 GT from my 18th birthday until I was 30, when an old man ran an intersection and t-boned it. It was a daily driver and everything was stock except a higher capacity fuel pump and an aftermarket clutch pauldron. Ran great. Totally reliable.
I love the foxes, particularly the interior of the later models, but the
86 really appeals to me. It's stripped down and bare bones. It shares the different "4-eyed" front end with the 85. The engine, due to the heads, is one of the worst 5.0 EFIs, but no one I raced around town could tell. It was fast and reliable. The five speed worked great and the clutch held up for over 100,000 miles. The red-lighted instrument cluster communicated a certain menace to the driver, and the Tron-grid instrument bezel was great for 80s nostalgia (I didn't have the fake allen-bolt cluster for some reason). The 10-hole phone dialer rims are classic and don't scream for attention. The exposed exhaust pipes (as on the LX) looked great.
Anyhow, just being nostalgic. A friend of mine just bought a Z06 and I'm wishing I still had the 86. Maybe a midlife can happen in one's thirties?