Going retro can be a digital tightrope walk if the goals on the other side is automotive mass appeal. Smear it on with a trowel, and the internet will call it heavy-handed. Waft its general scent across the room, and the internet will say it doesn’t go far enough. The solution, of course, is to log off of Twitter, touch grass, and listen to the soundtrack of a five-liter V8. This is the new Ford Mustang FX package, and it brings back just enough of the ’80s to be absolutely rad as opposed to clichéd.
Mind you, I’m specifically talking about the look of the late-’80s and pre-mainstream-grunge ’90s here, after everything stopped being 50 shades of Harvest Gold but before things went completely bubbly. In that era, the fox body 5.0 Mustang ruled the roost because it was relatively affordable, had huge aftermarket, and appealed to just about everyone from football jocks to retirees. Plus, America had firmly crawled out of the Malaise Era, and not only was the Fox Body 5.0 fuel-injected, it could keep up with a Ferrari Mondial. To celebrate Gen X’s pony car, Ford’s launching the FX Package for the next model year of Mustang GT, and it’s a box you’ll probably want to tick.
This special appearance package is available with two different wheel styles, both of which are painted white. Add the FX package to a Mustang GT Premium, and you get a set of split-five-spokes, but tick both the FX package and performance package boxes, and Ford will upgrade you to a set of turbofan-style alloys with ten raised spokes as a nod to the wheels on the 1993 Mustang Cobra. Between this, the Maverick Lobo, and the Mach-E Rally, Ford’s all-in on turbofan-look wheels, and we love to see it.
Of course, there are more white details to this Mustang appearance package than wheels alone, because the badges and grille inserts complement the factory rollers. However, the coolest snowed-out detail is the tail light treatment, a frosted clear appearance updating the previous-generation Mustang’s highly desirable euro-spec tails. Polishing the exterior treatment off is a new available color—Adriatic Blue—with a name that’s an intriguingly veiled hint at the teal in this hue. If you’re getting Calypso Green fox body vibes, I suspect that’s not an accident. It harkens back to an era when dealers actually stocked cars in reds and greens and purples and teals, and people bought them.
You know what else is a lost art? Fun fabrics. It seems like after the 2000s, almost everything got very toned-down, which is why I’m stoked to see the Mustang FX package bringing plaid seat inserts to the party. Sure, it’s not as colorful as the tartan in the Volkswagen GTI, but it’s definitely not boring. Plus, teal and white stitching punches up the rest of the interior, and the result is charming yet restrained. Even if you have an unnecessarily serious office job leveraging synergies with blue sky thinking, the cabin of this Mustang will make you think you can just about get away with bring it to the employee parking lot.
We don’t know how much the Mustang FX package will cost yet, but we do know it’ll be available for the 2026 model year on Mustang GT Premium coupes and convertibles. Given that Mustang model years tend to change early, don’t be surprised if order banks open soon. Now where’s my hair metal mixtape?
Top graphic image: Ford
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There’s nothing actually fox-body like about any of it, just like that stupid digital cluster.
I wouldn’t think the 80s retro would work with the 60s retro but it does. I love everything about this, except I want those turbine wheels as machined aluminum with black pockets. The interior rules, too.
I’m here for anything teal with white wheels
Can I just get the seats.
I love those wheels. Honestly I wish they had gone more fox-body with the S650s design over all, 2 decades of retro 1965 was enough. Maybe a job for the Bishop???
I just fell in love with a Mustang again. The 90s vibe and color works for me. The teal exterior, plaid seats, and rims that aren’t that trendy ugly black, oh heck yes. More cars like this, please!!!
Looks great! Love this as another option against the “black everything” look, which I also like too!
Ford: “Hey remember when cars like this were fun and attainable? You know, the kind your dad bought used for $500 with his first job?”
Millennials: “Yeah”
Ford: “Well screw you!”
To be fair, Ford was never selling those $500 cars.
I like it, and I loved the fox body mustangs from my high school days. The triple white GT was popular, but the 5.0 LX in the same triple white was the one I had my eye on.
I like this color, and just with the GT and 5.0 on the side were gleaming white like the wheels and other accents.
I like it.
I owned a US 1979 Mercury Capri with the Recaro option, which had a black and white checked cloth center. This would be a nice counterpoint to my yellow Mach-E Rally with the white wheels, if I could afford it, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Is that the same plaid fabric from the Ford Bronco?
The color and plaid fabric are definitely throw backs but that is all I see. There is absolutely no resemblance to the Cobra wheels, not even the number of spokes add up. As a former owner of a brand new 89 GT I sure hope they do not bring back the same build quality.
It’s a nice color, but nothing jumps out at me that says “Fox body”.
I don’t recall them having plaid seats, and white wheels (the later 5 spoke “pony” wheels) were not a common option. I think they were only offered for 1 or 2 years.
Same with the colored nostrils and taillights – that was never a thing.
IIRC, the teal color itself was only offered the last few years of Fox production. Lots of teal SN95’s though.
Plaid cloth seats were standard on my 89 GT. The only white wheels I remember were the white five spokes offered on the 90 Seven Up special.
The Seven-Up cars came with turbine wheels like 87-90 GTs. Only the yellow, red, and white “Summer Edition” cars came with the white Pony wheels.
https://www.cjponyparts.com/resources/7-up-edition-mustang?srsltid=AfmBOoozhIH-HvIqCuaYjqlMNee4JvozaGV6V5QN0zoWXErtRpRi0cDr
Even one of Ford’s promo photos for this car has it juxtaposed with what looks like a 90-92 Fox that has the usual silver wheels.
That’s it, the summer edition! I knew it was something like that.
Oh that’s cool, I’d never seen one with plaid seats. I had a friend with one, his seats were plain gray, IIRC.
Plaid needs to come back. Even in trucks, I see restored K5 Blazers with plaid and they look SO good.
I’m not going to lie. Individually, I like the color, the plaid seats, and those wheels a lot (though they’re going to be a Bonafede bitch to keep clean of brake dust).
Still, I don’t feel the need to own this (or any other) Mustang.
Though I’d really love to own a car with plaid seats someday. 🙂
PS: I was going to spell it ‘bonafide’ but the spellchecker in my PC insists that it’s Bonafede, which breaks my brain a little bit. But, I’m very suggestible, so Bonafede it is. It’s not the first of April by any chance, is it? 😉
Bona fide. Two words. That might have been what confused your spellcheck. Though bonafede doesn’t appear to be anything, so I think your spellcheck may be glitchy.
I thought so too, but Windows 11 (?) seems to insist it’s Bonafede. Maybe some Russian or North Korean hackers have infiltrated Microsoft’s update repositories and are having a little fun at my expense?
bonafide
https://imgur.com/a/XDd55J2
Did you try it as two words, though? Bona fide. Bonafide gives me bonfire, bonair, and confide as suggestions, but no bonafede
“Bona fide” doesn’t call the spell checker, so you’re right Drew, I should have typed that to begin with. There used to be a fantastic (and affordable for impoverished college students to use for ‘fancy’ dates) Italian restaurant in lower Manhattan (on 2nd Ave I think?) a zillion years ago that was called Bona Fide(s?) IIRC. I took two, or maybe three, different young ladies there, so I should have remembered and
speltspelled it correctly in the first place. 🙂“He’s a suitor!”
Make sure you have some cofefe with your bonafede.
My friend, Siri, says it’s “bonafide.” She’s polite, so I’ll agree with her.
It’s the artificially intelligent speeling chequer.
I like it except for the white nostrils. I could fix that in short order. I thought the white taillight thing had run its course but it’s OK. The seats and the color are excellent.
As a colorblind person, I can swear the car is pink. Absolutely do doubt according to my eyes.
Then my brain tells me that Mustang owners most likely would never drive pink cars.
The mustang actually comes in Magenta this year which is a dark pink
I usually dig it when I see a pink car, which given that I live in LA isn’t daily, but not never either. Some small but meaningful percentage of the Lambos and Bentleys I see are wrapped or painted some shade of metallic pink, ranging from off-putting Barbie pink, to some really quite tasteful, more muted ones. And then of course, there are the survivor economy cars that were originally available in pink from the factory. I’m almost sure that I’ve seen a few pink Mitsubishi Mirages, and some other small Korean/GM economy cars too… maybe the Chevy Spark came in pink at some point? I’d still love to try one of those in a 5-speed. 🙂
There was at one point an official Ford pink, probably a special order (have to get back to working so not going to web search right now to confirm). My aunt had a classic (~1966) Mustang in that pink way back in the day.
Did she sell Mary Kay cosmetics?
Nope! I think she was working as a nurse at that time.
Our old next door neighbor did though, had one of those pink Cadillacs. Frequently saw people going to her door, coming away with little bags of stuff, looking happier.
I’ve never been an American car guy, but I would drive the hell outta this thing. I’m also really digging the Maverick Lobo. Come to think of it, that would make a pretty great two car solution.
Really dug the Maverick Lobo, not so much the price tag unfortunately
Yah, I dig it too, even though the base XL hybrid (sadly, no longer offered in that Area 51 grey/blue) is more my speed. The wheels on the Lobo are great looking, and I wonder what else they might fit on.
You called? My solution does indeed include a Maverick and RWD manual sports car (Miata, not Mustang though). Wise choice!
This is entirely personal perception, but the SN95 feels more spiritually teal than the Fox (possibly because the SN95 got a slightly brighter colour range, and displayed it more than the Fox), and I want to see a modern take on the GT’s 3-spokes.
Yeah, the Fox was only available in teal for the last few years of its life. There was one option that included white “pony” wheels, but I don’t recall what it was.
I feel like WAY more SN95’s were teal.
Either way, it’s a cool color. I dug it then, and I like it on Jeep Wranglers now.
I’d agree, teal was a very 90’s color, not really an 80’s one.
That’s what I was thinking too, unfortunately I feel like the designers they hired are mashing all the 80s and 90s together, like how I think of the 30s and 40s.
Factory clear tailligths? Oh man the cops are going to have fun writing tickets for that….
They’re DOT legal.
Lol that doesn’t matter to them at all. Cops have almost no training.
I had a friend with a WRX get a ticket for having a hoodscoop.
Another one told him his boost gauge was illegal.
Another guy with a 1st gen SVT Lightning, the cops wrote him a ticket for illegal taillights (factory altezza style).
I guarantee someone’s going to get tickets for this.
*shrug* not saying you’re wrong about ignorant cops giving tickets (I remember this being a thing with the factory tail lights on Pontiac G8s), but this is far from the first or last vehicle out there to have clear tail lights so it’s not like this would trigger a new trend.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Mazda_CX-7_Facelift_rear_20100731.jpg/1200px-Mazda_CX-7_Facelift_rear_20100731.jpg?20100731215850
https://www.heraldnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/15689000_web1_M1-Cars-edh-190225.jpg
Those both have some red in them. The ones on the stang look aftermarket.
Where do you live?? I’ve never heard of people getting tickets for modifications other than headlight tint, window tint or exhaust volume
They would have knocked it out of the park if the seat fabrics had the Solo Cup “Jazz” print from the 80s and 90s.
Yeah, no jazz graphics, no sale.