July 2007 Featured Ride:

Congratulations: Rob Hughes (Fiveoguy)

First and foremost I’d like to everyone at SVTsnake for bestowing the honor of being chosen as July 2007’s “Feature Ride” it’s not everyday a four cylinder, almost twenty-two year old car even gets considered next to the absolutely awesome cars in this club.

I suppose my love affair with Mustangs goes all the way back to the early 70’s and my very early (maybe three or four years old) memories of my grandmothers 1970 Ivy Green hardtop, something about the car always stuck with me. Before buying the SVO I was lucky enough to have owned (and still do) an 89 AOD LX Hatchback and a 92 5speed LX, and even though both of them are very special to me, neither is as significant to the history of the Mustang as the SVO is.

A little background on the SVO before I get into the details of mine. In the early 80’s Ford wanted to build a car that could go head to head with the best Europe had to offer, namely BMW and Porsche, but Mustang at the time was far from up to the task. On a shoe-string budget, a small group of hardcore enthusiast within Ford formed the Special Vehicle Operation, SVO for short, and went to work calling in favors from suppliers and searching throughout Fords existing parts bin to almost completely re-work the Mustang into a car that could compete and beat the Euro sports cars. No part of the car went untouched. Lincoln’s Continental was tapped for the front suspension and disk brakes all around, (wait a second wasn’t the Conti a front driver? Yup). Koni was called in to make it handle like a proper sports car. In a day when 15’s were big wheels, the SVO got wide 16 inch 5 lug wheels, just like the Corvette and 928. The interior was almost completely reworked with hi-bolster seats, leather wheel, shifter and parking brake as well as having the pedals set much closer than the stock 5 speed Mustangs for optimal heel/toe shifting. Hurst built the SVO’s short throw shifter. Up front the team designed a new aerodynamic nose and designed a bi-level rear wing that actually produced useable downforce. Under the hood Ford knew it had to make significant power but couldn’t do it at the expense of the cars balance and handling, as the v8 was extremely nose heavy, so once again they dug into the good old parts bin. For years they’d been using a near bulletproof 2.3 liter 4 cylinder in just about every car they made, now the difference would be that the SVO team would not only turbocharge it but also would turn up the wick just a bit more by using a top mount intercooler and pushing 14psi through the little four. It is widely believed that the marketing department at Ford wouldn’t allow the SVO’s published horsepower (175-205hp) figures to exceed the V8 GT’s although at the time it just might have made more power on the dyno.

The SVO only sold for three years, 84-86, with a little less than 9900 built compared with well over a half a million non SVO Mustangs during the same time period. A hefty $4000 premium over a GT and an uneducated sales forced can be blamed for the models short run.

My 1986 SVO is even more unique as it was just one of 123 Competition Prepared cars ordered, imagine you could walk into a dealer and check off box 41C (a savings of almost $1300) and get a car that was essentially stripped down ready to race with out the extra weight of air conditioning, radio, power windows, power locks, power fuel door, power hatch release and sound deadening Comp Preps were also re-sprung to deal with the lighter weight the car now enjoyed. My car was ordered with the Comp Prep option but for some reason was delivered with power doors, I think the factory may have ran out of the crank window door panels, and to not hold up the line they just threw on what they had, it’s a one off for sure. The original owner of my car also had the dealer install a/c before he took delivery in late September 1985. Go figure.

With the exception of a adjustable boost valve, fuel pressure regulator, MAC cold air kit and a 3” custom American Racing stainless exhaust under the hood she’s all stock. Out back the previous owner added a Thrunderbird TC’s 8.8 inch rear replacing the wimpy 7.5 the factory built her with and I have a set of polished stock SVO wheels with 225/50/16 Bridgestone Potenza S-03’s all around.

Driving an SVO is like no other fox Mustang, it just feels so well balanced, lighter and so much more buttoned down and predictable than any fox I have driven. It holds a line like a road race car and stops like one too. Although it certainly doesn’t have the grunt of a Terminator or even a new three valve, when the turbo spools up to 18 psi and hits hard at 3K you’d better be going straight or you might find yourself in a little bit of trouble.

I’d like to thank my beautiful wife for supporting my Mustang addiction all of these years, and my two wonderful kids, Shelby (6) and Ryan (2) for “helping” daddy out in the garage and at car shows. I’d also like to thank Nick over at AmericanRacingHeaders.com for building me such a kick ass exhaust system and all of the members of SVTsnake for reading my feature.