Rare Rides: The 1990 Ford Mustang 7UP Edition, Get You a Cold Pop

Corey Lewis
by Corey Lewis

Today’s Rare Ride hails from the last bit of the Fox-body Mustang era. And while there were only supposed to be a handful of these 7UPs ever made, the special edition ended up with a production figure in the low five digits.

Only one car is lemon, lime, Mustang, and forgotten. Let’s go.

The Fox-body Mustang was pretty old hat by 1990. At its debut for the 1979 model year, it was a replacement for the universally panned and Pinto-based Mustang II. Over the years the trim and looks of the Fox Mustang were updated to keep it relatively in line with the times, as the world exited the Malaise Era. The initial design lasted from 1979 to 1982, as a refresh occurred for model year 1983. The redesign didn’t do much for customers, and by the middle of the decade, the old pony was sliding big time in sales. That’s when Ford contemplated the front-drive Probe as Mustang’s replacement. At that point literally hundreds of thousands of Boomers mailed Ford angry letters and demanded they keep the Mustang in its rear-drive state.

Ford saw the error of its front-drive idea and bent to the will of the people. The Probe went on sale as a separate model. For 1987 the Fox Mustang was refreshed once more and leaned into the final iteration that carried it through to 1993. At that point, Ford had a new and modern (still Fox-based) Mustang ready, which aged very well over time.

That brings us to 7UP time, and the NCAA basketball finals. That year, 7UP wanted to have a contest and give away some cars. They selected a Mustang as the freebie of choice and commissioned some LX convertibles with a 7UP color scheme. The soft drink company wanted 30 cars, which they’d give away at half time during the NCAA finals. Sink a shot from center court, and you could win a Foxy 7UP Mustang.

But things didn’t go down quite as planned. For unknown reasons, 7UP pulled out of the contest idea at the eleventh hour. At the time, Ford had two 7UP specials completed and decided that tripling down was the best solution. 1990 just happened to be the 25th anniversary of the Mustang. Ford was not planning anything to commemorate the event, but all the sudden had two green and white themed Mustangs on hand. Boom! 25th Anniversary Commemorative 7UP Mashup Jubilee Edition, or something. While Ford called it an anniversary special edition, the public knew the truth and deemed it the 7UP.

Ford upped the production order of the newly-minted edition to 5,000 examples. All were LX trim convertibles with a 5.0-liter V8. And all were Deep Emerald Green and had white interiors (even half the dash was white), and a white convertible top. Other niceties included finned aluminum rims from the GT, and some standard equipment like air conditioning, cruise, premium sound, and cassette player.

Of the 5,000 planned, 4,103 were actually produced. 2,743 of those had an automatic, which meant 1,360 were accompanied by our friend Manuel Transmisen. That transmission means today’s Rare Ride is the rarest 7UP of all. With 106,000 miles and in spectacular condition, it’s available in Cincinnati for $12,900.

[Images: seller]

Corey Lewis
Corey Lewis

Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.

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  • Wodehouse Wodehouse on Nov 16, 2020

    Truly love this Mustang! Very fond of this era of Mustang and this color/trim/wheel package is damn near perfect for me.

  • Amber Amber on Oct 15, 2022

    Ahh I had this car. Loved it! I had it in 1996. Miss those years!

  • SCE to AUX "...since the truck’s molasses-speed rollout". Except that it's the best-selling electric truck - to my surprise. What do you not get in this cheaper version? That would have been useful information to include when writing about a less-configured vehicle.
  • Kars in Canada you can buy a base Toyota corolla hybrid for $30,000 while the Fiat costs nearly $38,000 with the $5000 provided by the Feds - need I say more.
  • SCE to AUX "Like us, Europe has also seen consumers shifting away from all-electric vehicles. Early adopters have already adopted and prices for EVs remain comparatively high." Interesting, except none of that is true.
  • SCE to AUX "sales have been abysmal since the brand dumped its combustion counterpart". Sales were abysmal even with the combustion counterpart. Fiat is not an EV bellwether.
  • Pianoboy57 Oh the looks you're going to get showing up at the club in the non-foundation model. I hope your self-esteem can take it.
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