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

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]