Junkyard Find: 1979 Ford Mustang "Indy 500 Pace Car Edition"

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

1979 was the first year for the Fox Platform Mustang, and Ford celebrated by grabbing the rights to show off their new machine at the 1979 Indianapolis 500. You could buy a street version of the Indy 500 Mustang pace car, and many did. Many others, a few years later, bought the galloping-horses-and-tape-stripes decal kit for their non-Pace Car Edition Mustangs. I’m pretty sure that this car— which I found in a California self-service yard— belongs in the latter group… but not completely sure.


This car was so much better than the Pinto-based Mustang that preceded it (not to mention the bloated early-70s monstrosities that preceded that car) that Jackie Stewart had no problems finding nice things to say about it.

The true pace car ’79s were all painted in “pewter,” which this suspiciously primer-looking paint might have been, 34 years ago.

You can see a bit of the crazy op art upholstery that was used in all the 1979 Pace Car Editions.

Pace Car Edition ’79 Mustangs came with a choice of the 302-cubic-inch V8 or the turbocharged 2300 “Pinto” engine. This here is the non-turbocharged Pinto engine. You decide— is this a garden-variety four-banger Fox Mustang, worth scrap value, or a genuine special edition pace car, worth twice scrap value?




Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Holmd90 Holmd90 on Jul 15, 2013

    ^Original-appearing being a reference to the inside of the door and the engine bay, the rest is a horrendous respray including a very saddening masking job on the decals.

  • Teranceofathens Teranceofathens on Jan 27, 2015

    Hey, what junkyard did you find this in? I need a door from that car. Oh, and yes, I have one, and I'm fairly certain that's the real deal.

  • Wolfwagen I have worked as a manager in both union and non-union locations. The best union employees were the ones who were indifferent to the union or told them to get bent. The worst ones were the ones who would run to the union for every little thing, even when it was their own actions that caused the problem or because they could not understand their own contract
  • Harry HOW i RECOVER MY LOST OR STOLEN FUNDS:You should gather and document all relevant details about the theft, such as transaction IDs, wallet addresses, and any communication with the scammer if any, and then proceed to message SYLVESTER. G. BRYANT to get back your lost/ stolen funds by sharing the evidence you've compiled. he was the only one who was able to recover my funds I was so surprised he got back my money worth $52k but glory be to God and all thanks to him.. here is his contact below: Instagram: Yt7crackerszEmail: Yt7crackersz@ gmail,com
  • Daniel J I had read an article several years ago that one of the issues that workers were complaining about with this plant is that 1/3 of the workforce were temporary workers. They didn't have the same benefits as the other 2/3 of the employees. Will this improve this situation or make it worse? Do temporary workers get a vote?I honestly don't care as long as it is not a requirement to work at the plant.
  • Kosmo Tragic. Where in the name of all that is holy did anybody get the idea that self-driving cars were a good idea? I get the desire for lane-keeping, and use it myself, occasionally, but I don't even like to look across the car at my passenger while driving, let along relinquish complete control.
  • Bof65705611 There’s one of these around the corner from me. It still runs…driven daily, in fact. That fact always surprises me.
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