What's More American Than A Fox Body Mustang Painted Like A Flag Doing Burnouts
It's the Fourth of July, and the 250th anniversary of our founding fathers telling the British to sod off. That means it's time to celebrate our rights, have a cookout, blow stuff up (some restrictions may apply), and shred tires with American muscle. Junkyard Digs on YouTube has gone overboard for America250, not with a brand new Captain America Jeep Wrangler, but with a 1979 Ford Mustang. It was the first year of the Fox Body Mustang, and its return to being a true American pony car.
Of course, $1,000 on Facebook Marketplace only gets you so much — that was the price of this American-celebration car. Even worse, the car is from Minnesota, and comes with 47 years' worth of rust and questionable repairs as a part of the deal. On the plus side, popping the hood reveals a 351 Windsor V8. Sure, it cuts out regularly, but it's a V8, the perfect engine for burnouts with a loud, if poorly constructed, exhaust to match. What could possibly go wrong?
Kevin and Angus typically focus first on bringing their projects into good, or at least good-enough, mechanical shape. But with only 48 hours until the car show and burnout competition, this time they focused on the most important part of this project: its looks. It's hard to argue with the results, which look amazing. I particularly love how they painted an American flag into the egg-crate grill.
It works, sort of
Obviously, the Digs guys do give the car's mechanicals a little bit of attention. After all, it won't do a very good burnout if the engine keeps cutting out every time they pull on the steering wheel — which was one of the original issues. Unbeknownst to them when they bought it, this Mustang was saddled with a lowly 7.5-inch rear end with an open differential, which was not optimum for turning tires into giant clouds of smoke. The cheap mini spool they intended to use is not available for the Ford 7.5-inch, either, so they end up just welding the hell out of it in true American redneck style.
Considering it got a backyard paint job, applied in between bouts of rain, the car looks amazing. And at the car show it attracts loads of attention, which is, of course, what America is all about. Well, that and burnouts, which also attract attention and showcase dominance. When it's time for the burnout competition (which appears to take place on a closed-off public road), Kevin lights 'em up — and the axle hops all over the place. Tires can't melt into smoke if they're not in contact with the road, thwarting his efforts a bit, but he eventually smokes the tires in a respectable fashion. Much of the smoke was likely from the clutch, but who cares? It's still a Fox Body Mustang with an American flag paint job. It looks awesome. It may be slow and incapable of performing a proper burnout without shaking the rear suspension to death, but that doesn't matter, because 'Murica!