How the ’90s Saved the Ford Mustang (And What it Means for the Future)

Perhaps nothing is more important to the Ford Mustang story than the fans. This might sound like platitudinal BS, but it's also true. At every turn when Ford could've either killed the famous pony car or made it worse, the Mustang's wildly vocal and passionate fan base stepped in to save it from ruin (well, except for maybe the Mustang II). Everyone likes to wax nostalgic about the original "1964 ½" and Shelby Mustangs, but the truth is the two cars most responsible for keeping the model vital and setting it up for success into the 21st century are '90s babies.

In 1990, a divided Berlin was becoming one again. Soviet citizens in Moscow were lining up for the communist bloc's first Big Macs. In America, Vanilla Ice was cruising in his white-on-white "5.0" Mustang, lyricizing over Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure." The Mustang was still a hot commodity, but sales weren't quite cooking the Chevrolet Camaro like a pound of bacon, as Ice rapped in his hit single. Popularity of the long-in-tooth Fox-platform Mustang, new for 1979, had slumped since 1986 and was two years away from flatlining at 79,280 examples sold. Worse, the Camaro was about to outsell the Mustang for the first time in six years. The fact this was a self-inflicted wound didn't make the pill any easier to swallow.

Autoweek broke the news in the summer of 1986 that Ford and Mazda were developing the next-generation Mustang. Together. Due in 1989, the new Mustang would trade its old-school pushrod 4.9-liter V-8 (the Five-Point-Oh's actual displacement) and rear-drive platform for the Mazda 626's front-drive architecture and its I-4 and V-6 engines. Mustang fans and Ford dealers revolted.

The following summer, we reported the rebellion had begun to have an effect. The rear-drive Mustang GT received "a stay of execution," we wrote in July '87, and Ford planned on selling the Fox Body as the "Mustang Classic" alongside the new Mazda-based "Mustang IV," before phasing out the older version. We concluded by asking, "In a car that will inevitably be compared as weak next to the Mustang GT, are the letters 'IV' quite appropriate?"

Our colleagues at Mustang Monthly were even more apoplectic. "As much as I try to rationalize the whole deal," editor Donald Farr wrote, "I just can't force myself to accept Ford's intended future for the Mustang. Call me old-fashioned or sentimental or just plain stubborn, but a Japanese car, even one built in America, is a Japanese car, and I'm not prepared to see a Mazda with the Mustang name and running-horse emblems affixed to its fenders. After the Mustang has clawed its way to the top of the pony car heap once again, Ford plans to turn it into a front-wheel-drive copy of a Japanese car. Un-American, I say."

A letter-writing campaign from the Mustang faithful followed, and Ford caved to the pressure. By the following summer, the Blue Oval announced its new Mazda-based "sports car" would be called the Probe. We liked the Probe GT just fine when we drove it the next year but nevertheless felt the need to point out, "The Probe is not now and never will be Mustang GT competition, and Ford was right to pass on the silly nonsense of giving this car a Mustang nameplate."

Thus the question remained: What to do with the Mustang? An outspoken minority inside Ford still pushed to make the car front-drive (the 11-year-old Fox Body Mustang outselling the Probe in 1989 quieted that crowd), even while a skunkworks popped up to develop what would become the SN95 Mustang. That's not to say Team Mustang, as it was called, was given much to work with—it had $700 million and three years to save the car. For comparison, the team across the hall working on what would become the 1995 Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique had about $6 billion and more than six years for its efforts. Some corners would need to be cut.

For starters, the aging Fox platform was heavily modified to be more forgiving and livable than the rough-and-ready third-gen model. The next Mustang wouldn't get Ford's new modular V-8s—slated to debut on the 1991 Lincoln Town Car—at launch, either. Instead, the 4.9-liter V-8 would truck along with a minor power bump, from 205 to 215 hp, for a few more years. A new Taurus-derived 145-hp 3.8-liter V-6 for the base Mustang produced 40 more ponies than the tired 2.3-liter I-4 it replaced. Transmissions were to be a carryover five-speed manual or a four-speed automatic.

With the chassis and powertrains mostly taken care of, Team Mustang turned its attention to the SN95's styling. After some internal debate and numerous focus groups with Mustang owners, it decided the fourth-gen Mustang should draw on the iconic 1965 model for inspiration. In came the hood and rear quarter panel scoops, tribar taillamps, and the pony logo, which was to replace the Ford Blue Oval in the car's grille for the first time since the Mustang II. Inside, the cabin (penned by Emiline King, Ford's first Black female designer) got a modern take on the first Mustang's dual-cowl dash design, even sporting retro features like the original car's pull-out headlight knob.

The only question remaining was what the SN95 Mustang's exterior would look like. Three designs were focus-tested among the Mustang faithful. The first effort, dubbed the "Bruce Jenner" for its clean lines and athletic build, was deemed too modernistic and Probe-like. The second effort, the "Rambo," went to the opposite extreme. Featuring stealth-inspired surfaces, edges, and chines that would make even Elon Musk think it was a step too far, the Rambo, as we wrote in January 1994, "looks like a car designed by a maker of crosscut saws." It, too, was passed over.

The third effort, the "Arnold Schwarzenegger," blended the two earlier efforts. When Ford designers showed it to Mustang fans, they reportedly stood up and burst into applause. With a few final revisions and flourishes, the Schwarzenegger became the 1994 Ford Mustang.

While Team Mustang gestated the SN95, Ford's newborn Special Vehicle Team (SVT) was hard at work making sure the Fox Body Mustang went out with a bang. Spun up in 1991, SVT combined multiple Ford high-performance efforts (such as the team responsible for cult classic '84-86 Mustang SVO and another working on the original F-150 Lightning, page 36) under one roof. One of its first tasks was to turn the aging Mustang GT into a street fighter capable of hanging with the coming, new-for-1993 fourth-generation Chevrolet Camaro Z28.

Working with a shoestring budget, SVT raided the SVO aftermarket parts catalog to Frankenstein together what would become the 1993 Mustang Cobra. Freer-flowing cylinder heads; new valves, intake manifold, and throttle body; and a revised camshaft and ECU tune combined to bump the 4.9-liter V-8's output from the stock 205 hp to 235, with most of the power hitting near the engine's 5,800-rpm redline.

SVT's chassis engineers were somewhat counterintuitively also working to make the Fox Mustang softer. As we noted in testing a V-8-powered Mustang LX in 1990, the Fox was a handful when canyon carving, frequently bouncing from understeer to oversteer. SVT reasoned that a more compliant suspension combined with 17-inch wheels—the lone truly new performance upgrade to the car—would improve tire contact and thus performance. Disc brakes also reappeared at all four corners for the first time since the SVO model left the lineup. Rounding out the package was a revised front fascia featuring a galloping pony in the new grille, SVO taillights in back, and coiled Cobras on the hatchback's flanks. Ford planned a production run of just 5,100, including 107 lightened track-focused Cobra R models.

The work paid off. Although it lost in our February 1993 head-to-head matchup with the 1993 Camaro Z28, the new 1993 Mustang Cobra offered a lot to like. "Has the beans to rip your head off when you've strained the tach needle deep into the vast yellow zone (4,700 rpm to 5,800 rpm)," we wrote, even as we noted we missed the lower-grade Mustangs' ample low-end torque. We also appreciated its day-to-day usability and improved comfort and grip over the standard Fox. Buyers agreed, quickly snapping up the single-model-year production run.

A few months later in our November 1993 issue, the new 1994 SN95 Mustang made its debut. We found the GT, for better or worse, softer and slower than the Fox it replaced. "Many users may find homogenized handling has pulled the teeth from the new GT, especially since a tepid V-8 won't restore the roar in a drag race," we wrote. Ford, in response, noted improved handling and more power weren't items Mustang buyers were interested in. Whether anyone at Ford said this with a straight face is lost to history. Nevertheless, the Mustang went on to be named our 1994 Car of the Year, largely on the strength of its styling and the V-6 model's value.

Ford eventually gave in to technological progress two years later in 1996, introducing its new "modular" V-8s to the Mustang. Named for the engine family's ability to be scaled up or down based on the vehicle, the new 4.6-liter overhead-cam V-8s initially kept the Mustang GT's output flat at 215 hp and 285 lb-ft, but those figures rose to 260 hp and 302 lb-ft by the time the supremely popular "New Edge" face-lift arrived in 1999 to close out the 20th century.

The modular engine became a boon to high-po Mustangs, too. The fourth-gen Mustang closed out its run in 2003, with the Bullitt, Mach 1, and a slew of reborn Cobras. Some controversy surrounded the 1999 Mustang SVT Cobra's claimed 320-hp output, but there were no such qualms with its Mustang-first independent rear suspension or the variants it spawned, such as the 2000 Mustang SVT Cobra R (a track special powered by a monster 385-hp 5.4-liter V-8) and the "Terminator" 2003-04 Mustang SVT Cobras, which featured a supercharged 4.6-liter good for 390 ponies and lb-ft of twist.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, Mustang sales exploded after the arrival of the New Edge face-lift and new engines, and Camaro sales dwindled, that model being unceremoniously dropped from Chevrolet's lineup after 2002.

Fast-forward to Detroit, 2023, where we've gathered a 1993 Fox Body Mustang Cobra, an SN95 1996 Mustang GT convertible, and a brand-new seventh-generation S650 2024 Mustang Dark Horse—the first new Mustang trim since 2001's Bullitt. Despite the generational gaps separating them all, we see many of the same philosophies first set out during the Fox Body-SN95 transition still playing out today.

Design-wise, the 2024's evolutionary rather than revolutionary styling hits all the same major cues the Fox and SN95 do. There are the framed trapezoidal grille with a pony galloping from right to left, the fastback roofline, the tribar taillights, and the same sinister stance across the board. Inside, the 2024 Mustang recalls its forebears with a similar dual-cockpit layout to our 1996 Mustang GT, and there's a digital nod to the '93 Mustang Cobra in the form of a gauge cluster skin that pays homage to the late Fox Body era.

Peel back the new 2024 Mustang Dark Horse's sheetmetal, and you certainly won't find the Fox platform hiding underneath. (We checked to be sure.) Instead, you find a modified version of the sixth-generation S550 Mustang's platform—the first, we should add, to feature an independent rear suspension as standard equipment. Under the new Mustang's hood will also reside some carryover engines and transmissions. The base 2.3-liter turbocharged I-4 is a new version of the last-gen Mustang's base unit, now producing 315 hp (up five) and 350 lb-ft (up zilch). The new Mustang GT features a true 5.0-liter V-8. The revised Coyote engine—a descendant of the modular V-8 family first seen under the hood of our Bright Tangerine photo subject—now produces 480 horses and 415 lb-ft in standard form, up from 450 hp and down from 420 lb-ft. The Dark Horse? It gets an even 500 hp and 418 lb-ft. Six-speed manuals and 10-speed autos carry over, too.

Ford declined to let us drive the new Dark Horse—it says we'll get a chance closer to the car's summer on-sale date—but we took advantage of a rare sunny Detroit winter day to go for a spin in the Cobra and GT convertible.

Although we lack the context our MT predecessors had of the day's Camaro Z28, this mean-looking  black '93 Mustang Cobra is instantly recognizable as a special car. The best way to describe it to a younger enthusiast is that it feels like a Subaru BRZ with torque and an engine note that doesn't sound like it's coming from a tractor.

Sure, the Cobra is softer than a modern car, with the typical delayed set-and-turn behavior of this era, but boy, is it a charmer. Dip into the free-breathing "five-oh," and you're rewarded with a guttural engine note and a torque shove that builds the longer you hang onto the throttle. The five-speed manual is remarkably direct and accurate (we've driven worse modern gearboxes), and thanks to great pedal spacing and a responsive engine, drivers get rewarded with that warm, fuzzy feeling when nailing a heel-toe downshift.

The four-speed automatic '96 Mustang GT convertible represents the opposite end of the performance spectrum from the older Cobra. It's softer, slower, and more numb, but it's also more comfortable and enchanting in its own way. The 4.6-liter modular V-8 likely has a lot to do with that. With an unmistakable, guttural exhaust note and an angry, lumpy idle, the GT begs you to drop the power-operated soft top and just cruise. This Mustang GT era is almost diesellike in its power delivery; with way more torque than horsepower, it gives a strong, short shove off the line but little reward for hanging into the throttle—aside from the V-8's bark as you near its 6,000-rpm redline.

Yes, electrification looms in the Mustang's future, but its place in Ford's lineup is no longer up for debate as it was 30 years ago. Now part of a Mustang family in which its stablemate, the Mustang Mach-E electric SUV, outsells it, the 2024 Mustang is the Ford lineup's halo car. It's also the only car in the Blue Oval's lineup. While crosstown rivals wind down production of the Challenger and Camaro, Mustang fans can rest easy that its future is assured. After all, Ford looked down that road before, and the success of the '90s Mustangs—as well as their throngs of faithful fans across the globe—cemented the car's standing as a staple of the automotive world.

Special thanks to Terry Chaney of Detroit, Michigan, for the gracious use of his 1993 Mustang Cobra and Ron Semmler of Mount Laurel, New Jersey, for the use of his 1996 Mustang GT convertible.