All 2024 Ford Mustangs feature a digital gauge cluster, and as you’d expect, it’s highly configurable. There are settings or “themes” tied to various drive modes to highlight different bits of information. Delve a little deeper into the menus and there’s one theme that’ll delight tons of Mustang fans: Fox Body. No, really.
The Fox body ran from 1979 through 1993 and became an icon in its own right. It was a return to form for the nameplate after years of emissions-choked power outputs. In 1984, Ford introduced the high-tech 2.3-liter turbo-powered Mustang SVO—developed by the team that eventually evolved into today’s Ford Performance—and the 5.0-liter V-8 finally crested 200 hp for the first time in years. The Fox also lent itself to the first SVT Cobra and Cobra R near the end of its run. Over the years, the Fox has proved itself to be a robust platform for all sorts of modifications, and a mainstay in pop culture.
A 1987 Ford Mustang GT Convertible
So why not pay tribute? “I grew up with Fox bodies,” says Craig Sandvig, interaction design manager for Ford. “I didn’t own one, I wanted to own one. It was really an aspirational thing. I had lots of friends that had them, I had a girlfriend that had one, it was really cool.”
Sandvig tells Road & Track the idea for a Fox-body theme came about early on in the design process. “Taking advantage of a digital screen, it’s fully reconfigurable, right? So what can we do? We experimented with it for a little bit and had some fun.”
1988 Mustang GT gauge cluster.
Ford chose to specifically re-create the white needles of the face-lifted Fox body built from 1987 to 1993. Thankfully, it didn’t re-create the 85-mph speedometer fitted to many Fox Mustangs over the years. And yes, when you turn the headlights on, the gauges are “backlit” in green. Sandvig says that there wasn’t enough time to create a gauge cluster paying homage to every prior Mustang generation, so the Fox was chosen, given the popularity of Eighties and Nineties cars at the moment.
We suspect a lot of new Mustang owners will choose this gauge cluster theme. Especially if they buy a white 5.0-liter convertible.
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Source: www.caranddriver.com