1989 Ford Mustang LX 5.0

This car, Lot 400.3, sold for $71,500, including buyer’s premium, at Barrett-Jackson’s auction in Scottsdale, AZ, on January 18, 2017.

There are times when your ego takes a little too much control — and you think that you have it all figured out.

It happened to me at about age 16. I had a driver’s license at 15. I was a year ahead of everyone else because I worked a Montana Loophole and was now in Arizona.

I had joined the rank-and-file workforce and was getting a paycheck. I thought I was pretty smart and on my way — or so said my ego. By age 22, I was working for Bob Bondurant and was around professional drivers every day. At that point you realize you are not the smartest person in the room — or the fastest guy on the track.

By your 30s, you start to think you can predict cycles in life. Heck, you might even have a good idea of who is going to be elected president, and then current events once again prove that you really don’t know anything. By age 40, you are pretty sure that you don’t want to be the smartest guy in the room. If you are, you are in the wrong room.

Barrett-Jackson has some of the smartest people in one room, so I am trying to figure out this latest sale (and others like it) at the Scottsdale auction. When a $71,500 Mustang sells, we all want to know what was so special about the car, as Mustangs of any era are typically $20,000 to $50,000 in regular street trim.

Big-block and Boss cars need not apply.

The Mustang with perfect math

For starters, this car has 638 original miles on it. Second, well… uh… hmmm…let’s come back to that in a second.

For a while now, I have been preaching the investment potential and usability of the Fox-body Mustang, and I may have been a little ahead of the curve. Many agree because the model was iconic.

This generation put the Mustang back on the map with the same simple math as the original cars: Eight cylinders plus three pedals plus low price equals fun. You don’t have to be a member of Mensa to comprehend that.

If the manufacturer can keep out any negative elements (blundered body design, economic recession and so on) from that equation, it works. The 5.0 5-speed combo worked well in these cars — even if the basic design elements of engine and chassis were getting to be 20 years old at the time.

The 5.0-liter engine was stuffed in everything from full size F-150s to granny-haulin’ Mercurys and Lincolns of the day. It was a very versatile engine, and the Borg-Warner 5-speed was a delight to shift.

When highly abused, they bent shift forks or lost a second gear synchro pretty easily, but they were also cheap and easy to fix.

One thing I did have figured out at age 16 was that this combo worked and was attainable. What I do not have figured out at age 41 is why a common Mustang LX should bring $71,500.

Coming from the same Mustang collection was Lot 400.5, a 1990 7-Up LX convertible with only 16 miles on it that sold for a whopping $82,500. To me the 7-Up car was more attractive — if you are in the market for hermetically sealed Mustangs. It was a convertible in a great limited-edition color with a snazzy white leather interior and the hard-to-clean GT turbine wheels, which were thankfully ditched in 1991 in favor of the comely five-star, 16-inch pony wheels.

Putting all of this into perspective is the 7,900-mile 1989 Saleen SSC that also sold at the Scottsdale auction for $39,600.

Wait a second. A highly collectible halo car from the same year with production at only 161 cars brings half the money of these other two sales?

Making the Saleen even more appealing, you could actually drive the Saleen to Cars & Coffee and not shred the value. In my book, that makes the car even more desirable.

Once again, I don’t have it all figured out. The Saleen sale solidifies that going market price — and it is a fair market sale.

Pickled to perfection

Our subject car is honestly nothing special by virtue of its window sticker — but the fact that the window sticker was never removed is where this car’s value lies.

This car is a run-of-the-mill LX hatchback finished in Cabernet Red — a color that is happy on Mustangs and Chrysler K-cars alike. The interior is the common — yet borderline bad taste — Scarlet Red. The Smoke Gray interior of the day aged much better, and black was not available until 1990.

This car is well optioned, with the comfy sport bucket seats and power-accessories package. It is as fully loaded as you could get for a 5.0-liter LX hatchback — with the exception of the automatic transmission, which would detract from the package.

The car is also a 1989, which many consider to be the most desirable year. It was the first year for the Mass-Air-type fuel-injection metering. This was mandatory if you wanted make any real engine modifications without driving the old speed-density computer insane.

It was also the last year before a driver’s-side airbag was mandated and you lost the tilt-steering-wheel feature. It was also the last year before the bean counters at Ford took out the armrest in the center console. It returned a year later by popular demand.

This car is also not the higher-end GT with ground effects, but some consider the weight savings of the LX to be the better package. To employ the same thought process, the notchback car represented the lightest package and the tightest chassis. This car is not a convertible either, which begs the question, who cares?

Low miles, low miles, low miles

Well, I guess 638 original miles is why we care. The center caps have never been snapped onto the phone-dial wheels, and the rubber-mold release is still present on the intake boot and upper radiator hose.

This car is pretty cool as a time capsule, but this also is where the car starts to become a piece of garage art. I don’t want to debate the artistic value of dated aesthetics, but the fact remains, you can’t drive this car without completely erasing the nearly 28 years of storage which has caused it to sell for five times its MSRP here.

There is a lot I have yet to figure out in life. I have yet to figure out neglected barn finds covered in owl droppings. I just want someone to wash that poor car.

I can, however, see the intrinsic value and the story (or lack thereof) of this car. It’s the opposite of a barn find, and there is a slight mystique to it having never gone through dealer inspection.

For my money, I would want the car to be something a little more exotic in production, such as a 1993. This car just represents the everyday middle ground in the 1989 Mustang lineup.

These Barrett-Jackson sales represent the new high-water mark for Fox-body Mustangs, and they are still way off the bell curve.

Maybe the person who bought this car was overcome by Fox-body red mist. Maybe he bought it too early. Maybe he is the smartest guy in the room. I still haven’t figured it out.

Very well sold — for now. ♦

(Introductory description courtesy of Barrett-Jackson.)