With Its Rare Color, Is This 1986 Mustang Just Your Style?
There are a lot of Ford Mustangs. Millions of them. Creating a Mustang that stands out in a crowd can be difficult, but occasionally you stumble across one that somehow becomes more than the sum of its parts. It catches the eye and keeps attention. Not for any crazy reason, but just because it has a certain special feel to it. That’s exactly how I felt the first time I saw this 1986 Mustang GT.
My soft spot for cars of the 1980s has been growing as of late, but it still takes something special to get me excited about cars that came from that bounce-back time in the auto industry. Horsepower was on the return and styling was not terrible. In fact, in the right color just about every car from the 1980s looks decent. Until today, I never knew that all I needed to like Fox-body Mustangs was some Dark Sage exterior paint.
Despite this car being nearly half a decade older than me, I’ve never previously crossed paths with it or one of its doppelgängers. That’s likely due to the relative rarity of the color. The combination of this nice dark green with the light tan of the Sand Beige and Buckskin interior was optioned on just 78 cars. Spread that out over the thousands of highways and byways of the US and it’s obvious why I never got to see one.
This one is optioned like the one I would have wanted to discover, too. The GT package lends some performance to back up the nice looks, namely a 200-horse 5.0-liter HO V-8. The power figure sounds meager, but with 285 lb-ft of torque on tap, these cars move pretty well if you are looking for a sporty driving experience, especially when paired with the five-speed manual transmission. It’ll still turn the tires but is much more likely to turn heads as the crowd moves around this pony rather than it running through the crowd.
Is it the rarest Mustang? Hardly. And that’s fine. It’s still a neat car that grabs attention for the right reasons. A car that almost demands a second glance and then still your brain needs a second to put together why you stopped to look at it. While some get this with a paint-to-sample program, there are plenty of cars that come in great non-boring colors and trims if you are just willing to get a little nerdy. If this one is just right for you, be sure to raise a bidder paddle at the upcoming Mecum Kansas City auction on December 7th.
This is unbelievable. This Fox Body Mustang and its color reminds me of the Bullit Edition Mustang. Whoever this pony car belongs to is one lucky owner. I wish I had the means and opportunity to purchase this fine piece of a fox body. I bought a brand new 1996 Mustang GT with the all new 4.6 liter modular V8. Ford rated that motor at 215 horsepower. I’m still kicking myself for getting rid of it. I’d love to have one of the 2013 or 2014 Mustang Mach1s. I think that was the years of the last Mach1s with the shaker scoops. Please correct me if I’m wrong about any of this concerning the Mustangs. Thank you very much
As close as you could get to the classic Highland Green , which looks good on damn near anything and more so on a Mustang. There were a number of nice maroons in the later 60s that fell out of fashion. Today I’d go for a – not too light, not too dark , just right, chocolate brown metallic . ‘ Hershey bar brown ‘
Color is so subjective. Sage green, uhhhh not a fan, now change that to metallic forest green and ya got me. Had a young man that worked for me buy his first new car a 1996 Chevy Cavalier. This was at a military base in Panama and you purchased them through catalogs. He got it in and after the initial shock of seeing it for the first time I asked him why he ordered it in Puce. After a few ums and ers he responded “it didn’t look ugly in the magazine”…
Big Foxbody fan specially 4 eye ones here.. own myself a beaten 85 silver GT and would be a beautiful color for my ride thanks on the article.
Dark Sage was also available on Mustangs in 1985. I was a Ford Salesman at the time and I sold a Dark Sage 1985 base model hatchback with an equally rare V6 engine. The V6 was rare because Ford was really pushing 4 cylinder cars with a “Bonus Package” of over $1k worth of free options. The buyer was a lady who happened to love the color.
My friend had one in that color, it was beautiful and that 86 mustang had plenty of power compared to the early 80’s model.
I have an 85 fox body also and I must say I love the color wow she’s absolutely beautiful 👍👍
I have a 1990 7up car. I would like to see the same car in sage rather the emerald green. Just a thought.
There’s a reason why this car is so rare, and it’s because almost nobody wanted that color back in the day. 🙂 The ’86 GT was a cool, obtainable sports car. 200 HP was a pretty big number in real SAE terms. The ’88 GT, with its Euro-style headlights and louvered taillights, was my favorite of the era. It’s probably best that I didn’t own one, as I likely would have crashed it–that kind of power and teenagers don’t mix well. 😆
I am of the opinion that the 4 eye cars are the best looking fox bodies, and this one is especially nice in that green. I’ve owned a 79 Pace Car, an 84 GT hatch, and an 85 LX 5.0 hatch. All great cars that I miss. Hopefully in the next few years I’ll be in the market for another one if they are still attainable. This particular one is going to bid high.
That Sage Green color in this story caught my eye, just as it did in the early 2000’s when I purchased a Sage Green SVO sitting in a back yard in a neighboring town. I think the SVO experts said they made about 32 of the SVO in Sage Green. I’d like to post a photo but don’t know how to do that on the Hagerty site. Unique color, and when polished up it looks good.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a GT in this color – it looks great. I’ve seen a number of SVOs in this color and they’re very sharp. And like some other posters, I really like the ’86 GTs. They were introduced when I was a junior in high school and I was elated that the 5.0 finally got fuel injection. I finally had a chance to own an ’86 GT in 2010 – only kept it about a year but it was a fun car.
Great story! I guess my 1986 V-6 convert must be Highland Green, not Sage, but it has the beige and buckskin interior and a newish buckskin top. Handsome car, gets lots of admiring looks, though not restored — and certainly not perfect.
Awww yea!! My wife and I had an 87 GT Hatch that she bought for $15k brand new when she got out of school. Life progressed and we had to sell it to get a more ‘4-seasons’ type of daily driver. Here it is 37 years later, and we found another 87 GT. This time, it’s a convertible, only has 17k, one-owner miles, and is loaded with all the options we couldn’t afford back in 87. What a blessing!
OOOOH, totally forgot, its the same exactly color (Dark Grey over Titanium)!!!
I like this olive green color. It looks good on this car.
These cars were a blank canvas unfortunately they also became the Rustang. They now command good money for a descent canvas, but they are out there. The FoMoCo small block is easily taken over 400CID/500HP and front subframes are available to install big SBC, BBC and any Ford. Suspension pieces abound.. Frame flex requires attention first and foremost.
As for colour, fresh paint or vinyl comes in any shade of anything. This is the new Tri-Five.
Nah – this drab color is too close to Army green. Too many much better, brighter colours in that era.