Motorsports photographer and Ford Mustang enthusiast Wes Duenkel has owned five Fox Body Mustangs over the years. One he owned recently was a red and silver model from near the end of the Fox Body era. It always got reactions from people passing by in parking lots.

“For a lot of people, it brought back a lot of memories,” he said. “I think that it was kind of a quintessential '80s look.”

To tap into that look and those feelings, Ford recently unveiled the FX Package for the 2026 Mustang. This package of decorative elements, seat fabrics, and wheels takes its inspiration from the famous Fox Body Mustangs that hit the streets through the '80s and into the early ‘90s.

“That was our hot rod that we would have liked as a kid.”

Christopher Wong, proprietor of Curry Up Café in Los Angeles

For a whole generation, these were the Mustangs they grew up loving and, even if they were too young back then, hoped to own one day.

“That was our hot rod that we would have liked as a kid,” said Christopher Wong, a.k.a. “Chef Wongie,” the proprietor of Curry Up Café in Los Angeles.

As a boy, Wong watched Mustangs driving by and was drawn to their speed, performance, and style. As an adult, he has owned at least seven Fox Body Mustangs in addition to his daily driver, a 2017 Mustang EcoBoost convertible.

Fox Body Mustangs were built from 1978 to 1993, spanning the era of MTV, Miami Vice, and Members Only jackets. The name “Fox” comes from a vehicle engineering platform originally intended to underlie a number of smaller rear-wheel-drive Ford and Lincoln models. It lasted the longest, by far, in the Mustang, ushering in a new era of performance with engines like the famous 5.0-liter V8.

“It was a reinvigoration of the brand,” said David Kinney, publisher of the Hagerty collector car price guide. “It was the reinvigoration of the word ‘Mustang.’”

It wasn’t just raw engine power, either, said Ted Ryan, Heritage brand manager at Ford. With improved handling, it was also the first Mustang that was easy to slide and drift.

Plus, in keeping with the Mustang ethos from the very beginning, this sort of performance was accessible for average Americans, not just the wealthy.

“The Fox Body is just like the original Mustang in spirit,” said Dave Tressler, an enthusiast from New Kensington, Pennsylvania. “Not only great cars, but they were very accessible, very affordable. Anybody who wanted one could get one, which is a part of what made the original so popular.”

For Ford’s designers, the job wasn’t to try to make today’s seventh-generation Mustang look like a Fox Body car, said senior designer Stefan Taylor. Instead, they wanted to create a package of interior and exterior elements that would be evocative of the era, including the teal color borrowed from a 1993 Mustang Cobra in Ford’s Heritage Vault. In the FX Package, it contrasts with white taillight covers and white intake nostrils in the grille.

"When you mix that teal and the white, it captures that nostalgic feel for me,” said Adam Dokey, a Fox Body fan from Southgate, Michigan. “Honestly, it's got me really thinking about that for a next move."

Christopher Provan, a Ford enthusiast in Kent, New York, who has owned several Fox Body Mustangs, said he can definitely understand the appeal of something like the FX Package.

“For people who want to feel the aura of that time without the hassles of owning a 40-year-old car, this really could hit the sweet spot,” Provan said.

As far as Duenkel was concerned, he liked the idea of the FX Package but he’s curious to see how a new generation will embrace it.

“It's kind of that era, you know, the Vanilla Ice kind of thing,” he said.

It’s a certain feeling. As the rapper Robert Van Winkle, a.k.a. Vanilla Ice, famously said, “And I'm sweatin' like steam and you can feel the flow when I'm rollin' in my 5.0.”

Peter Valdes-Dapena is a writer who covers automotive industry and culture.