Nothing seems to get the Mustang faithful more fired up than the mention of adding a sedan to the mix of body styles. Sure, there’s the Mach-E which they can sort of turn a blind eye to, but a rear-drive, V8-powered four-door hits a bit too close to home.
I get where the execs in Dearborn might be coming from; with sagging sales, that might the only way to possibly save Ford’s last remaining normal car. Maybe it’s not a bad idea, and it’s not like it hasn’t been done before. For a few brief years, Ford offered what was essentially a Mustang sedan in all but name that very few people remember. It’s time to revisit the rare LTD/LX.
The Fox And The Pony
Arguably, the second favorite Mustang of all time after the original 1965 model was the one that pulled the fabled pony car out of the malaise doldrums: the 1979-93 “Fox” body Mustang.
Trim looking and lightweight, the “Foxstang” was one of Ford’s bright spots of the seventies that rapidly improved over the ensuring years that it was built. More sophisticated than pony cars from days of yore but still simple enough to easily upgrade and turn into something quite tractable, it’s remained popular with enthusiasts for generations.
However, the Mustang was not the first “Fox” body car. That program was a sweeping change for Ford and ushered in a new era of more efficient and better-driving cars, even if it didn’t fulfill its initial goal. You see, many people think the 1981 front-drive Escort was Ford’s first “world car” failure, but it wasn’t. During the 1973 energy crisis, Ford launched a program to build a global platform to replace not only the American offerings like the Maverick and Torino but also the European Cortina and Taunus. Ford planned to have at least two sizes to make a one-car-fits-all solution. It took barely a year for Ford to realize that the wants and needs of the different continents would make such a program unfeasible.
Ultimately, US Ford took the ball and ran with it, developing a unibody design with a layout and boxy look that seemed almost like Dearborn’s interpretation of a Volvo 2-Series. A live axle on coil springs in back was paired with Macpherson strut front suspension and rack and pinion steering, allowing for a wide engine bay that could accommodate a vast array of motors from a Pinto four up to a 302 V8. The Ford Fairmont and its Mercury twin, the Zephyr, were introduced in 1978 and available in a bunch of body styles including two- and four-door sedans:
Despite the optional woodgrain trim, the Fairmont also offered what was about as close as an American car got to the benchmark Volvo 245DL wagon:
There was also the basket-handle-topped coupe called the Futura that was a bit of a mini-T-Bird:
Several wheelbases and lengths were to be offered with the “Fox” platform, including a shorter one to be used for an “upcoming sport coupe” – gee, I wonder what that could have been? No, it wasn’t an exciting car, but the Fairmont was a strong seller and was flat-out European compared to the barges that Ford had foisted on Americans throughout the disco era.
The Fairmont soldiered on until 1983, when the new front-drive Tempo came in to replace it as the now-much-smaller “mid-sized” Ford. The plan was almost certainly to discontinue the big Panther-bodied “full-sized” LTD, but dropping fuel prices meant that it sold too well for them to kill it (though I think few people likely imagined that the Panther would survive for another twenty years). Ford’s backup solution was to kick the old Panther “upstairs” to make the “super full-sized” Ford LTD Crown Victoria; the old Fairmont would now take on the “full-sized” car role as the new LTD.
To make the new LTD, Ford basically kept the center section of the Fairmont but added a more laid-back nose and angled tail, along with a more raked backlight. Apparently, this improved aerodynamics drastically, Ford touting that it only took 6.7 horsepower to push the LTD along at 50 mph.
The end result was handsome but hardly earth-shaking, a look that did a good job of belying the platform’s age. Ford could have been content to sell this LTD to rental car agencies and people who generally wanted no-nonsense transportation; however, somebody must have seen the same-chassis Mustang, put two and two together, and realized there was an opportunity for something a little different.
Grab Some Wrenches, I Have An Idea
Actually, the idea for the LTD/LX might have also been inspired by modified examples of Ford’s Fox sedan being used by race driving instructor Bob Bondurant. Bondurant had made tweaks to stock LTDs used at his driving school, resulting in something that was deceptively fast and with rather decent road manners.
For 1984, Ford dug into the parts bin to make a factory version of the Bondurant track car, starting with the 165 horsepower High Output five-liter engine from the same-year Mustang GT (Ford’s own literature claims 175 HP), hooked up to a mandatory four-speed automatic.
The spring rates were changed to 600 lb-in front and 270 lb-in rear coil springs, and gas-filled shocks and struts replaced the standard LTD fare. Bigger front and rear sway bars were combined with 10-inch front disc and 10-inch rear drum brakes, and a 3.27:1 rear with a Traction-Lok differential. Sure, 205/70HR14 Goodyear Eagles don’t sound like much, but for a late Malaise era sedan, that’s impressive standard rubber- just to have an LTD without whitewalls was an accomplishment!
It really was as if someone took a Mustang GT that an overzealous driver on the test track had written off and just bolted all mechanical bits onto an insurance salesman’s sedan. What a great idea.
On the outside, if you wanted glitz to show this newfound road prowess off, you were out of luck. First, you can see from the sell sheet above that it was only available in a few colors that were barely even colors at all. The chrome was blacked out and sportier, but still painfully subdued “road” wheels replaced the typical wire covers usually seen on LTDs; beyond that and dual chrome exhaust tips (but not true dual exhausts), there was little to give the LX’s mission away.
Inside, there was no tufty button-backed upholstery; bucket seats flanked a console featuring a floor shift for the slushbox.
When you hear “Ford LTD” you wouldn’t think of individual seats up front with some sense of lateral support and inflatable lumbar supports, would you?
Here’s the party trick: the spacious rear seat. If you drive the LTD/LX to some Mustang event with a few friends, you won’t have the fastest or slickest car there, but when it comes time for an off-site lunchtime run to a restaurant, I can guarantee whose car everyone is piling into. A big trunk is an added bonus. Yes, there was an LTD station wagon (basically a Fairmont with the new front clip and different taillight lenses) but sadly Ford did not make an LTD/LX long roof.
Good Lord, what is that in the gauge cluster? That big instrument next to the 85MPH speedometer? Is that an actual 7000RPM tachometer?
Out on the road, the LTD/LX was not going to beat a BMW 535i, but you can see in this Motorweek road test that John Davis is pleasantly surprised that it “makes a good run at rivaling Germany’s best in response and feel.” Wow, really John?
For 1985, the LX soldiered on for a while longer, but it wouldn’t last. As radical as Ford’s change to the “Fox” body was in 1978, for 1986, an even bigger revolution was on at the Blue Oval. The introduction of the new aerodynamic front-drive Taurus spelled the end of the “Fox” LTD, and with it the LX.
Unlike the offerings from the other Big Three, like the front-wheel drive Dodge 600ES or Pontiac 6000STE, the LTD/LX was the only one that offered a more traditional sport sedan experience free from torque steer, regardless of how much extra power you threw at it. Despite this, it didn’t really click with buyers. Sales for 1984 were a scant 1,920, and another 3,367 left dealerships for 1985.
You want really rare? In Canada, the LX was offered as the Mercury Marquis LTS; records indicate that a mere 134 of these LX twins were ever built!
Maybe the secret Mustang four-door was a bit too stealth for its own good.
And Just As They Were Getting Started
The LTD/LX was a bit of a disappointment, but it’s really not the fault of the car as much as it is the missed opportunities of the idea. Introduced just as the 302 V8 was starting to wake up from its slumber of the malaise era, the Fairmont-based LTD didn’t live long enough to get the real go-fast components which the Mustang GT (and LX 5.0) finally received in the late eighties.
Today, values of the LTD/LX are painfully low, despite the rarity. You never see Fox Fairmonts or LTDs on the road today, with most examples used up and thrown out long ago; in many cases, they were stripped for parts to keep mechanically identical Mustangs going.
This one below from an auction is imperfect, but a new headlight, rattle-canned black trim, and a run-over with a buffer wheel would do it wonders. The odometer read 20,000, which is likely 120,000 or 220,000, but this is one car and engine where such numbers are meaningless. It sold for under $8,000, which was actually higher than the estimate it was given:
Actually, I don’t see how the low values of the LTD/LX aren’t a good thing. With such rock-bottom prices and seemingly limited appreciation potential, there’s no point in keeping an example “numbers matching” to park with a framed sign in front of at a car show. You could feel free to make a junkyard dive and finish the job Ford began by bringing home a port-injected 225 horsepower 5.0 V8, five speed stick, rear disc brakes and whatever other later “Fox” Mustang, T-Bird Turbo and Mark VII LSC parts you could dredge up for dirt cheap to make an LTD/LX into the Q-ship that it had the true potential to be.
It’s got to be the least expensive way to get into a performance Fox body today. More importantly, you’ll realize maybe the idea of a “four-door Mustang” ain’t that bad after all.
Can someone please explain to me why car manufacturers can’t have the one car fits all in the production room but totally pretend they are different vehicles on the sales floor. A gear head wanting a sports car doesn’t want a wagon being sold as a similar vehicle.
A friend had one of these in high school, and not a one of us appreciated it in the least. Despite sounding good, it wasn’t fast, it wasn’t a Mustang, so it was a focus of mockery. Sadly, said friend beat thing hard and sold it for an absolute garbage Mustang LX convertible with the low-output 302. It would be pretty cool to have today.
However, I have seen one of those Mercury Marquis LTS! It was quite confusing to see, after all the time spent with my friend’s Ford.
Back in the early 90’s, my freind’s Bob’s dad had a baby blue Foxbody LTD (not the LX) that he was very proud of. One day when a group of us were hanging out at Bob’s house, his dad started talking up how great the LTD was.
“You know” he said, completely sincere. “That car has the style of a Lexus”
I don’t know how we all managed to keep a straight face at the time, but this became a running joke for months (if not years) to come. Bob probably didn’t appreciate it, but so it goes…
(which was more than could be said about Bob’s Mitsubishi Starion.)
I wonder was your Bob a friend and you spelled it wrong or was he a fiend and you accidentally added an R? It really changes the metrics.
It was not as obvious of platform sharing, but the Lincoln LS was arguably a 4-door Mustang.
Or more accurate the Mustang a de-contented, 2-door LS.
Not to mention, a four-door final Thunderbird, the Jaguar S-Type’s American cousin and distant platform cousin to the X350 Jaguar XJ and the first-gen XF.
The Fairmont/zephyr/ltd fox bodies are hugely popular in drag racing. I can’t remember the last time I went to the track and DIDN’T see one.
Yep, magic of the Foxbody platform is that the cool Mustang aftermarket parts fit all the Foxbodies. The only reason to pick a Mustang over any other Foxbody as a starting point is if you think the Mustang is cooler.
Also, each of the ones I’ve driven they all feel like LIGHT cars. That’s something you don’t get with most other domestics of the era or, well, ANY car today
It makes me want to learn bodywork, spend a decade really honing the skills, and then sacrifice a couple of okayish Foxstangs to reskin an LTD into an actual four-door Mustang.
Swap over the nose from the later generations. Spend almost any amount of time massaging the engine or, for maximum cool factor, drop in the turbo 2.3. Swap in a five-speed. Maybe go nuts and swap over the hatchback booty for greater utility. And when you step back and admire your handiwork you discover you’ve built…
A Merkur with four doors – that is, a Sierra Cosworth.
Here’s the fun bit: You don’t have to learn bodywork to do that! The front clip of the foxbody mustang, LTD, Fairmont, Zephyr, Capri, and Marquis are all interchangeable – the body lines match up perfectly!
You can actually find many examples online of people putting Mustang and Capri noses on all of those cars. It’s a very common thing to do in the Foxbody scene, and they all look good.
Personally, I love the look of a Mustang or Capri nose on the Fairmont Futura in particular, but they all look better with a Mustang nose.
…I also have to admit I think Foxbody Mustangs would look better with the nose of any of the other Foxbody cars, due to them being more rectangular and therefore traditionally muscle-car-shaped. And I think it’d be a little funny to put the more “fancy” front ends of the LTD and Marquis on the Mustang :p
So yeah, nose-swap all the Foxbodies!
Not quite correct. While Mustang fenders and hood will literally bolt onto a Fairmont or LTD, the shut lines between the door/fender and hood/cowl are different so it leaves a noticeable gap if you don’t do body work. Most examples I’ve seen with a Mustang nose had spliced fenders.
Good to know. Even then, it’s fascinating that the body lines match up as well as they do.
if/when ford comes out with the ford mustang, they HAVE to call it the falcon. it’s a nice “full circle” moment, seeing as how the 1st mustang was based on the falcon.
Back in high school, I owned the Mercury version of the LTD, a two tone brown ’84 Marquis. Nicely equipped with tilt wheel, cruise, and electric windows, it delivered on luxury, however the 3.8L Essex required MUCH hot sauce on the right rear tire to generate any excitement, and multiple attempts at a top speed run failed to achieve the maximum indication of 85 MPH.
However back in that day, wrecked late 80’s Mustang GT’s and LX’s as well as every other iteration of Foxmobile were plentiful in wrecking yards. Our local one had a Mustang LX roll-over that I personally lot-drove, and was DYING to just start buying anything and everything I could to swap into the Marquis. As luck would have it, before I could put that deal together, I was offered a smoking hot deal on an ’82 Trans Am with Cease-Fire Injection, which I bit on, because that car was road ready…..until I drove it a few miles.
That damn Trans Am is a story for another day, but suffice it to say that I SHOULD have built the Marquis up. I still hunt for a LTD/Marquis from time to time, but I can never seem to find one that is a decent starting point.
LTDScott should just sell me his, LOL.
Same here, younger brother had a mint ’88 T-bird with a 3.8 Essex. A few times we considered buying totaled out V8 Lincoln MK IIV’s.
One of my favorite parts is how the tach is seemingly reversed – showing you green for acceptable rpms instead of red for non.
(And my decades later SN95 tach goes to 8k, but almost a third of the whole thing is redlined)
Are those wheels on the Sotheby’s auction car actually OEM for this model? They don’t feel like it (they seem like something off a European Ford), but they could be.
Notice one other tachometer tidbit – the green section is fat where the powerband is fat, and skinnies out where the engine runs out of steam!
Those wheels are in the brochure shot of the black car above.
Yes. The 8-hole aluminum wheels were optional in ‘85. The weird rubber faced Polycast wheels were standard.
The wonderful things I learn here, thank you! I knew Chrysler offered this sort of wheel back then, but not Ford. Talk about a retro look that needs to return. I mean if Ford cars would also return.
The lede image shows a white LX, but later down, in the short list of colors, white isn’t one of them 😛
And yeah, too bad no LTD LX wagon
Two things: it was available for two years and the color availability in the other year you could get it might have been different. Also, I believe that might have been a silver car but once it was color adjusted to “pop” in the topshot it changed a bit too much.
1984
Medium Charcoal Metallic
Silver Metallic
Light Academy Blue Glow
1985
Medium Charcoal Metallic
Black
Oxford White
I knew you’d know that 😉
Back in high school, a buddy of mine had a 78 LTD. Thing was a barge, but it had a 351 Windsor and a thirst for cheap gas and was the perfect tank to take out playing a game of traffic barrel soccer after getting rejected by multiple females at the local White castle on a saturday morning around 2AM.
Yeah one of these would be a super fun oem +/parts bin build
Ford at that time did some funny stuff. My parents bought an 84 Continental and when it finally died my dad put it up for sale as is. The guy who bought it only wanted the rear end, which was a Ford 9″ with disc brakes. Why would Ford put something as heavy duty as a 9″ in a Continental.
This is incorrect. No Fox platform car ever came with a 9”. An ‘84 Continental had the 7.5” rear axle.
The late ‘70s Lincoln Versailles did indeed come with a disc brake 9” that was popular for use with swaps.
It was not a four-door Mustang, it was just a sportier Fairmont.
and a Mustang was…what again?:)
Ended high school with a Fox body LTD (carb’ed 3.8 V6) after my ’78 LTDII coupe lost an engine bearing. Honestly, not a bad car. Lightyears ahead in steering/braking/handling compared to the old barge. Spacious trunk. Dad had a Fairmont when I was very young and then a Fox-LTD wagon until he upgraded to a Colony Park. In my opinion they were far more modern than the contemporary G-body GM.
I had painted mine very much to resemble the LX in the pics, though I painted my door bottoms and rockers black (easier annual rust repair living in PA with a 10+ year old car back then). Just buy a can of gloss black at the hardware store. I ran that $500 car through 2 years of college and 1 in high school.
In 1993 most of the exterior plasi-chrome was peeling. I went a combination backout and gunmetal grey metallic.
If someone other than The Bishop wrote this article I might be offended that one of your oldest members has owned one of these for 25 years and named their internet handle after it but didn’t get a mention lol
Back when I bought mine it was just a used car and nobody cared about them. Nowadays people know about these because they’re getting priced out of Fox Mustangs and it attracts attention now just because it looks nothing like modern cars. Last week I drove mine and got a thumbs up from a Prius driver and a Porsche 911 driver within a few minutes of each other.
Hope the added attention from this post won’t cause any issues. Like demand increases, values rise even more and your insurance rates go up.
I have an agreed value full coverage collector policy that’s $175/yr. If it goes up I think I’ll be okay 😉
Thanks for this article! Now I’m wasting the rest of my work day on marketplace looking for a nice one
I am not one who rhapsodizes Ford’s Fox-body cars.
The Fairmont and LTD cars were devoid of any visual charm or excitement, though that wasn’t an uncommon malady across all of Detroit’s automakers back then.
My family’s Fairmont was not only dull to look at, it was a total snooze to drive. My brother briefly had an LTD of that era (not an LX) that was equally uninspired. Some of the Mustangs were pleasant enough to look at, but couldn’t match handling to their looks.
I spent six months with a new ‘88 Mustang GT and it never failed to disappoint when the road got curvy or the surface was even modestly imperfect. Find a frost heave or other uneven asphalt and that live axle went skippity do dah day. Don’t even think about carrying speed on curves with bumps.
In short, I found the Fox platform cars eminently forgettable and more than a little typical of their American auto era, perhaps, which was also largely forgettable.
As usual, I enjoyed your write-up, even if it didn’t conjure any nostalgia.
I disagree, they were a revelation compared to the older BOF Detroit iron. Rack and pinion steering, Macpherson strut front suspension, rear coils (not leafs) on a live axle. The Fairmont is a very clean, tidy design. Honestly, the LTD looks worse in some ways.
The diversity of experiences and opinions is what makes car culture and the Autopian so much fun. Happy to accept your disagreement.
No harm, no foul. We all like what we like and our lived experienece influences everything.
I grew up in a Fairmont, then an ’84 Fox LTD wagon.
My early passenger and driving experiences were in VWs, Dodges and Jeeps. My own first cars were late 60s Chargers and Coronets (Super Bee). No real paragons in that group either, but they were mine and I learned to wrench on them. My younger brother was into Fords (he was cop, go figure) first an LTD ll, then a Fox LTD and ultimately Crown Vics until he retired and moved on to Explorers and F 150s. My mom’s first car (late driver) was the Fairmont. I moved on to multiple Jeep CJs, a Comanche, and an MB; a Dodge Rampage; an RX 7; a Volvo 240; the Mustang GT; and a Saab 900 Turbo – the best car I ever owned. There were a few, various short term cars here and there, too, usually because I saw them and thought they’d be neat to own, but they either proved not so neat, or were too far gone for me to bring back. Through work, relatives, friends, and girlfriends I’ve been lucky enough to drive just about any thing that ever caught me eye. So, I’m a car mutt.
First car was ’78 LTDII coupe, then an ’84 Fox LTD sedan, then an ’88 Buick Regal coupe that lasted through college.. After college I have owned a pleathora of cars.
Yep, contemporary magazine reviews were very positive due to those things
Yep, they were heralded for their handling compared to the competition in contemporary reviews.
Objectively it ain’t, but my 2nd car in high school was one and the sickness started from there.
Haha. Objectivity is largely useless when it comes to individual preferences. A car might objectively be a good car, but if someone’s experience with an example of the type is negative, this tends to extend to the whole type even if that particular car might’ve been an outlier of the type. I’m most ignorant of 80s American iron because I was out of the country for all but a couple of years so my exposure to them was limited to the few with which I had direct contact. They’re kinda ghost cars for me. I know more about what came before and after the 80s. Conversely, I know a lot more about European and Asian cars of the 80s because those were my environments.
So, even though I didn’t like my Fox Mustang (or my mom’s Fairmont and brother’s LTD), the old girlfriend I sold it to loved that thing and drove the wheels off of it. Different strokes and all that …
It always confounded me why Ford didn’t brand the Fairmont as Falcon. The OG Mustang and the Falcon had shared pedigree in the same way as the Fox cars.
At the time, we were only eight years removed from the last US Falcon, and I think those still had a bit of a Dodge Dart-like frumpy connotation that Ford likely wanted to avoid with this newfangled mid-sizer. Now, of course, Falcons are considered cool as hell.
I suspect Falcon might have sounded too aggressive/exciting (despite the predecessor being “just” an economy car) especially on the back of the fuel crisis and all that. Fairmont sounds bland and pedestrian enough to be serviceable and generally inoffensive.
In the early 90s there was a kid in the town I grew up in who had basically this same car. It may have been an actual LX, I don’t know, but it was gray, had the bullet hole rims, and blacked out trim.
However, he had an SVO engine and manual trans in it. It made all sorts of fun boosty boi noises and ripped hard. Especially for ’93-ish.
He also had a 460 powered Zephyr coupe, so he was a Ford nut all the way around.
When I read about this, it makes me wonder why automakers are so incapable of offering different body styles of a given model these days… not to mention a lack of variety of interior colours and materials… even on premium/luxury models.
Might be the Mandela Effect, but I’m pretty sure there was also a Fairmont with a turbocharged Lima 2.3 I-4 at some point.
Yes, both the two door and more commonly the Futura was available with the early version of that motor.
I just looked at the 1980 Fairmont brochure, and it’s still not clear if the 2.3T was available on both 2- and 4-door sedans.
I couldn’t tell either, but I’m pretty sure the answer was “no”. I swear that I’ve seen a two door non-Futura with the telltale hood bump but never a 4 door
They even had a unique hood bump with turbo badge on it
It isn’t ugly
Those front seats look a lot like the ones in the SN95 and New Edge Mustang; have to wonder if its the same assembly .
Might well be. I have a NE SN95, and I enjoy pointing out to people that the previous Fox Body Mustang actually had better, more modern seating. I was also surprised to find out it also had a rotary headlight switch, and that Ford purposely replaced it with an older school pull-out one.
Probably all Lear Siegler
Paging LTDScott to the FoxBody courtesy phone!!!
I know, right? He’s mentioned his car(s) in the comments, so I figured we had to cover it at some point.
I expected at least a pic of his car in the article somewhere. His car dominates Google image search haha
I had all stock rides in my photos, and I was rather certain his had been upgraded.
That is correct.
However I was literally the person who years ago scanned in that dealer brochure you used. I can tell because I had to section it so the staples wouldn’t show. I can tell because the corner of the windshield is weird.
that was one of the few two page spreads I’ve done recently that I didn’t have to rubber stamp/bandaid tool the seam with photoshop, so thanks!