[Mr 5 0]

Originally Posted by Unit 5302

You'll find most members of this site very close minded as to what is acceptable in the form of modification to your Mustang.

I'm not sure when the whole neon underbody lights became a ricer modification. There were several fox body Mustangs that would be out cruising the streets locally in the early 90s with neon underbody lighting (years before the ricer craze).

I suppose it was probably about the same time that nearly any rear spoiler became a ricer modification, and around the time that any interior changes such as white faced gauges or color accenting became repulsive. Anyway, last I checked, neon underbody lighting has been around for decades, and so have wings on musclecars, even from the factory.

Meanwhile, it's perfectly okay to chrome everything within sight under the hood... lol, well, at least until import sport-compact car drivers start doing that, too.

Here's my take:

There has always been a certain level of animosity between muscle car owners and those who drive imports. As we all know by now, muscle car guys loved their cars because they were fast...and both looked and sounded fast. In the late 80's and early 90's, when guys started inheriting their parents used Hondas and Toyotas and began doing what young guys have been doing for over 50 years...'customizing' them, with wings, loud exhausts, neon, etc, the muscle car guys resented it because they considered this simply a pretension of power that the little 4-bangers did not possess. I have always agreed with that conclusion.

As time went on, NOS and turbos gave a minority of the Japanese cars some real power that could actually compete with the American V-8's, but more often the majority of so-called 'ricers' in the high school and college parking lots were still stock or near-stock 4 cylinder cars that ran 17-second quarters (on a good day) but looked and sort-of sounded like they were much faster, at least to the uninitiated among us.

Most Mustang owners I know (quite a few) would never try to pretend their 'Stang was more than it was, mainly because, if you put a super-loud exhaust system on your Mustang, added a big-scoop hood and so on, you were inevitably going to be challenged on the street and you would look pretty stupid when your near-15-second Mustang automatic was trounced by a more 'serious' modified Mustang V-8 that ran mid-13's and could blow you away in a drag race. Think of it as 'truth in advertising'

I owned a near-stock Mustang 5.0 that ran high 13's (if I drove it right) and I kept it looking bone-stock for the entire 15 years I owned it, including the factory wheels and 15" tires. Occasionally, I ran another muscle car (Camaro's, mostly) that sounded 'bad' and had the wing, hood scoop, etc. Ohhhh. In many cases, I beat them, making their driver incredulous and probably thinking he had been 'fooled' by my car's stock appearance. Not really. Any 5.0 'Stang with a 5-speed was capable of pulling high 13's if you changed out the rear ratio, added a 'pro' shifter and a few other mods, as I did. Nothing special about it. He just was over-confident that a loud exhaust and a few 'muscle car' add-ons equalled 100 HP, much like the 'ricers' still believe. They do not.

In any case, the idea of basically stock Japanese (and european) 4-cylinder cars displaying all the accouterments of a true 'muscle car' remained offensive to many drivers of American V-8 muscle cars - and that hasn't changed. 'Appearance items' such as neon lights just seemed gay as they were far removed from anything signifying 'muscle'. What next? Valour? Unfortunately, many teens just getting their first car that happened to be smart enough to purchase a Mustang (usually, a well-used one) bought into the 'bling' concept and added questionable items to their Mustangs, such as the now-infamous exterior neon lighting that CupCake unfortunately inherited on the Mustang she purchased.

At this post-Mustang point in my life, I don't care much what anyone does to their car, no matter what it is, but I still do wince a bit when I see a perfectly sharp Mustang with a laughably gigantic rear wing or, gasp! exterior neon lighting. Don't you?