GTP Cool Wall: 1984-1986 Ford Mustang SVO

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1984-1986 Ford Mustang SVO

  • Total voters
    117
  • Poll closed .
The Pinto is cool in the same way that Oldsmobile that came through a few days ago was cool only I thought was cool: It was terrible and no one liked it.
 
Exactly. Pintos are badass.

Tempos and Bronco IIs and Escorts are uncool.
 
Slash
Exactly. Pintos are badass.
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Slash
US market Escorts are uncool.
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Fixed.
 
That what I was getting at.
 
Zenith
I said that Mustangs with special monikers are uncool. That doesn't mean that Mustangs without special monikers are cool. Those Mustangs are uncool for different reasons.
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But any late model Mustang beyond the V6 is going to have a special moniker since those are tied directly to different engines/suspension ETC so does that mean all late model Mustangs are uncool. Or am I over thinking this LOL
 
homeforsummer
Of course it is.

Put it this way: Two people can agree and corroborate that a car pulls 1g on a skid pad, or hits 60 in five seconds. That's objective data.

But those same two people may not agree a car handles well - one may feel the steering doesn't give enough feedback, another may say it's fine. One might like how the car behaves on the limit, the other may find it a bit twitchy. Those sort of things come under the banner "handling" and they're entirely subjective.

No, they're stats to back up that the car was capable of performing well in a pre-determined test.

And I'm not disputing that aspect in the slightest. Modern Mustangs too have proven they can get around a circuit as fast as an M3 or grip as hard as a Porsche. I've no doubt the SVO was impressive in its day, next to higher-priced rivals from Ferrari and Porsche.

What I'm saying is that skid pad or slalom numbers do not automatically mean a car handles well. They just mean it's good at pulling high cornering forces or going around some cones.

Again, handling is a wholly subjective thing. A car that handles well on one road may not even handle that well on another. Or in the wet. Or once the tires overheat and all of a sudden the car becomes a massive handful while another remains benign.

I don't even dispute that the SVO might handle well. @Cano has offered his input on this and I'm happy to trust his judgement on it. But bare numbers do not prove a car "handles" well.

Or just see what @Tornado wrote, as he pretty much nailed what I've been trying to say.
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I don't have much time for this tonight, but here is some reading material for you:

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews...trumented-test-turning-the-ship-around-page-2

http://www.hemmings.com/hmn/stories/2013/11/01/hmn_feature2.html

http://www.carlustblog.com/2010/12/1984-86-mustang-svo.html

I couldn't find anything to claim the ride was any worse than other comparable cars. As you can see, in addition to putting up good numbers (for the time) in the slalom and skidpad tests, according to the reviews/articles above you can really feel it in the butt.
 
Meh. It's okay, but definitely not one of my favorite Mustang generation.
 
Uncool... Just.

Not my favorite (the only Mustang I hate more is the II, the thing that went almost 90 mph) Mustang, but it's not a Prius, which keeps it out of the Really really really really really uncool category.


It also doesn't explode or catch fire (Pinto much? Makes it cool), making it Uncool. Any car that explodes when you touch something is very cool.

"How did he die?"
"Just exploded casually by ramming my Astra VXR into a tree..."

(insert bad joke here, I'm useless at making them, seriously)
 
Kent
Here in the south a Mustang is typically driven by teenage punk boys or skanky redneck girls.
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The beauty of the 2.3 is that it's the Mustang your typical redneck Mustang owners hate.

For the people for whom "If it ain't a V8, it ain't a true 'Stang", the 2.3 is a slap in the face. Most owners at this point are enthusiasts who want to do something different to the common gigantic cowl-induction hoods and carb swaps.

For that alone, (again, a mild) cool.
 
Slash
Its really not that hard to the avoid the situation. If someone is asking then they are probably interested to begin with.
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When I explain the SVO to my friends who don't know what it is, it goes a little like this...

"The SVO? You know what an SVT Mustang is, right? Okay, it's that, but from 1984. Its SVT before it was called SVT. But, instead of a big V8, they tried a turbo I4 and made it handle. Pretty neat, right?"

Everyone nods and moves on.
 
niky
The beauty of the 2.3 is that it's the Mustang your typical redneck Mustang owners hate.

For the people for whom "If it ain't a V8, it ain't a true 'Stang", the 2.3 is a slap in the face. Most owners at this point are enthusiasts who want to do something different to the common gigantic cowl-induction hoods and carb swaps.

For that alone, (again, a mild) cool.
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Lol, this. The owner of the car I recently shot sez he gets quite a lot of this, and he's like "lol sure". It's even better when he races it against other Mustangs because, well, a stock Mustang GT wouldn't have held a candle to a SVO, now let alone at 2 km above sea level. He says the looks on their faces when their V8s are getting blown away by the hairdryer is priceless. He also sez that the looks on their face when they don't know the car is a 4 pot, they race, and after the race they come and see "what's under the hood" is even better. Some people don't even believe it came from the factory that way and tell him he "ruined the car" and such stuff.
 
YSSMAN
When I explain the SVO to my friends who don't know what it is, it goes a little like this...

"The SVO? You know what an SVT Mustang is, right? Okay, it's that, but from 1984. Its SVT before it was called SVT. But, instead of a big V8, they tried a turbo I4 and made it handle. Pretty neat, right?"

Everyone nods and moves on.
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Don't bring it up until asked. Again, problem solved.
 
Adamgp
according to the reviews/articles above you can really feel it in the butt.
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👍

That's exactly the kind of tests I was getting at. Not a number in sight, but plenty of comment on how the car actually feels to drive. As before, I was never disputing that it was good to drive, only that numbers don't tell the whole story :)

Incidentally, even if it had been a bit floppy in the corners, it wouldn't have changed my "cool" vote.
 
homeforsummer
👍

That's exactly the kind of tests I was getting at. Not a number in sight, but plenty of comment on how the car actually feels to drive. As before, I was never disputing that it was good to drive, only that numbers don't tell the whole story :)


Incidentally, even if it had been a bit floppy in the corners, it wouldn't have changed my "cool" vote.
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Finally. 👍
 
It's possible to have enormous amounts of fun while also being desperately uncool.

See any Lamborghini for further information.
 
Roger the Horse
It's possible to have enormous amounts of fun while also being desperately uncool.

See any Lamborghini for further information.
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Yep like watching Anime.
 
XS
But you're lumping monikers over 50 years of Mustangs. For each Mustang generation after the 60s there's been no more than three or four variants (excluding Shelbys). It's not like we're talking Skylines here. The 15 years the fox bodies were made there were only the 5.0, GT, LX, and SVO. The 90s had the GT, Cobra, Cobra R, and V6. We're talking decades here, not a dozen monikers for one model year. I don't really see how that's anymore unusual than Mercedez-Benz, Prosche, Lamborghini, Honda, and so-on. And add-on options like Drag Pak, FRPP, and the likes didn't get badges, so no need to explain. I will, however, agree the number of dealer specials (aka the High Country and Texas and California specials) did get stupid in the '60s.
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I agree. Totally unfair. Unfortunately this is the Cool Wall, and coolness isn't fair.

Mustangs of all ages are found on the road. With the possible exception of the Mustang II, they are a common sight.

Because of this, people see each of the dozen special monikers on a regular basis. They might see a Cobra one day, then a Shelby GT500 the next, then a Ford GT390, then a GT every day of the week. What the hell is the significance of GT?! Is that like a Boss? Is that the Boss version of the Cobra? Is an SVO a GT? Does the SVO have anything to do with Five Point Oh?

This leads to confusion, which leads to questions about boring names, which leads to the need for boring conversations about boring names plastered on the back of a car. Poor marketing decisions by Ford, makes the car uncool.

If you're talking about the name of the car rather than the car itself, your car is uncool.
 
TheCracker
My knee-jerk reaction gave it an uncool. But on reflection i'd probably give it a solid meh/borderline cool. Shame it had the wrong Pinto-blocked turbo under the hood.
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:confused:

What's the "right" Pinto-blocked turbo?

The water-cooled T3 ought to be robust, as robust as any turbo Ford put on the 2.3L block. It's higher-RPM than the smaller IHI turbo that was used in the later T-bird Turbo Coupes, but that's more favorable for a performance-oriented model and gives the SVO more headroom for mods and addition of boost.

XS
The 15 years the fox bodies were made there were only the 5.0, GT, LX, and SVO.
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Going by Wikipedia, it was quite a bit more varied than that. Early on, there were "Ghia", "Cobra", and "Indy 500". Then there were L, GL, GLX, and GT. There was also a Turbo GT.
 
Some of those models XS mentioned were sold side by side with the ones you mentioned as well. There's a ton of them but a lot of them were dropped by 1984.
 
MrWednesday
:confused:

What's the "right" Pinto-blocked turbo?

The water-cooled T3 ought to be robust, as robust as any turbo Ford put on the 2.3L block. It's higher-RPM than the smaller IHI turbo that was used in the later T-bird Turbo Coupes, but that's more favorable for a performance-oriented model and gives the SVO more headroom for mods and addition of boost.



Going by Wikipedia, it was quite a bit more varied than that. Early on, there were "Ghia", "Cobra", and "Indy 500". Then there were L, GL, GLX, and GT. There was also a Turbo GT.
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I stand corrected. I will say that the VAST majority of even Mustang enthusiasts only see 5.0 LX, 5.0 GT, and an occasional SVO. I've been to some of the biggest Ford meets in the world and have yet to see an authentic Ghia and only two real '80s Cobras.
 
The Cosworth YBB engine did not make it into a production vehicle until 1986, which might be part of the reason why Ford stuck with building upon their existing turbo-2.3 engine that was already in use in the T-bird Turbo Coupe from 1983 (with the SVO running from 1984 to 1986).
 
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