20th Anniversary Edition: 1984 Ford Mustang GT350
Ford decided to celebrate the 20th year of its popular Mustang in 1984 by producing a limited-run tribute car. The name harkened back to the days of the Shelby GT350, but these cars were mostly stock mechanically and were built without any input from Carroll. This convertible edition of the car has had the same owner for 25 years and that family has helped put 150,000 miles on it. It needs a new top and some work on the interior. Located in Bay Park, California, this Ford is available here on craigslist for $5,500. Thanks, rex m, for turning us on to this somewhat rare car.
The 20th-anniversary edition of the Mustang was an all-white car badged as a GT350, available in either hatchback or convertible body styles. Ford assigned a 35-day production cycle that resulted in 5,261 of the cars that went on sale in the Spring of 1984, the same time the original did two decades earlier. Other than a suspension upgrade, the Fords were mechanically the same as other Mustangs built in 1984. The cosmetic package included Oxford White paint, a dark red interior, fog lights, special badging, and bumper striping, along with a front air dam.
This edition of the limited run was a drop-top with a fuel-injected 5.0-liter V8 engine and automatic overdrive transmission (an inline-4 was also available – horrors for GT350 purists!). It produced 165 hp. The seller says about 800 of the Mustangs were built like this one, so the number remaining on the road today is likely small. The seller used this machine as a daily driver for several years and weekend family outings thereafter. It’s been garage kept so the body and paint look to be in good condition.
The only work that needs doing on the car seems to be a new convertible top and a recovering of the front seats. But the dash pad has a cover over it which may be concealing some cracks. The seller has a SEFI set-up from a 1987 Mustang that he thinks would improve the car’s performance and the buyer is welcome to it and engineer a swap. This could be a genuinely nice Mustang with a minimum of effort, but would the GT350 tribute storyline be an attention-getter?
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Comments
The question of the day is, what exactly happened to that top? Next question, tops are fairly cheap, on an otherwise nice car, wouldn’t you replace it before the sale for better fiscal outcome? Lazy seller, or is there other less visible issues with this car too. Then again, maybe lazy seller equals a good selling price for the buyer.
Any version of this car you can still find today in serviceable condition is worth looking into.
This is an automatic V8 version, of which you could only get a throttle body injector for 155 HP. All manual trans V-8 four barrel carbs were around 175 HP. The inline 4cyl you joke about was the same Turbo EFI version in the Turbo Coupe Tbirds, later intercooled versions in the SVO.
The turbo 2.3 and 302 4V whips this one barrel slushbox any day in 1984 or 2021. No auto transmission 4 bbl fox body cars were ever made. Similar performance between automatic (A4LD) cars and T-5 manuals wasn’t seen until 1986 when they all went to port injected EFI.
I would get a Marti report and keep it original, at least save parts to put it back that way if you upgrade it.
Add the story about Caroll Shelby suing Ford. He was with Chrysler at that time developing the Omni/Daytona/GLH with Lee Iacocca.
How much does a Marti report cost? How long does it take to get one?
The lawsuit was over GT 350 stickers on it settled out of court…
From a paint and body guy, this car has been repainted. The dead giveaway is the inside fender lips are cleaner and whiter than the rest of the engine compartment. Perspective buyers should check the floors in the rear for rust. It’s pretty common in the foxbody cars if the tops are not taking care of.
I’m not a paint and body guy, so you have way more experience than I. But I have an observation: the paint on the firewall and inner fenders is typically very weak from the factory on most Fox Bodies.
This car looks well-used but perhaps not abused.
85 and up r the Fox bodies u want if u like HP.