1985 Ford Mustang GT

1985 FORD MUSTANG GT BACKGROUND
1985 was a watershed year for Ford, but especially for the Mustang. They’d been teetering between pushing the Mustang more towards a sporty economy car, more like the horrible 1974-78 Mustang II, or turning into a true musclebound pony car, as it was always meant to be. The 1985 model year marked the point where Ford decided to go with the latter and from then on all future Mustangs would be performance-oriented. And soon horsepower started to climb again, and premium performance models began to sprout up that cemented the Mustang’s reputation.

1985 Ford Mustang GT CONVERTIBLE

MY OWN 1985 FORD MUSTANG GT STORY
In 1985 I was working as a new car salesman at Sunnyvale Ford in Sunnyvale CA. While I’d been in sales most of my life, I’d never sold cars before, and what an eye-opener that was. All the things they say about car salesmen is are true. But, that’s another story. There was lots of excitement over the new 1985 Mustangs, especially the GTs. They had a new, more muscular look, and a hotter engine by 35-horses! Ford also spent some time tuning that exhaust system got give it that now-trademark Mustang exhaust snarl. They were great cars, and we were selling a ton of them, mostly with 5-speeds for around $14-grand. The 5-speeds still had a Holley 4-barrel, and back in 1985, people were used to that, they knew Holley was a good name. The automatics, for emissions reasons, had to use a throttle body fuel injection system. I hope it cleaned up the tailpipe because it was lousy for performance. While the 5-speed cars with the Holley 4-barrel made 210hp, the EFI engine you got with the automatic made only 185hp. It would take until 1987 for the Mustang to come out with a true multi-port EFI system on the 5.0 V8, and the rest is history. Anyway, I was doing pretty well at the Ford store and decided it was time to buy one of these wonderful new Fords. The problem was the Mustang GT wasn’t the only car I longed for in Ford’s 1985 lineup. I really liked the 1986 Thunderbird Turbo Coupes. Yeah, they just had the 2.3L Pinto engine, but with that turbo and a 5-speed, they really cooked. It was a tough decision, and working at the dealership, I was going to get a killer deal on either one. But in the end, being a practical man, I took the T-bird, and never regretted it. But I always loved taking these Mustang GTs out on test drives with potential buyers, and telling them to “open it up, let’s see what it’ll do”. That gets ’em every time.

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1985 Ford Mustang GT SPECIFICATIONS