The San Francisco Giants may not engender the kind of rabid fan base as do New York's Yankees or the Boston Red Sox, but as today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe homage Mustang proves, there are still those who demonstrate that fan is derived from fanatic.
San Francisco, despite its hilly nature and public transit clogged streets, is in fact a great place to drive fast, just ask Frank Bullitt. In the movie Bullitt, which is based on the 1963 novel Mute Witness, Steve McQueen's title character plies a Mustang fastback to chase the bad guys across the city and out onto the highway, eventually ending in (SPOILER ALERT) a Dodge Charger flambé.
It's next to impossible to fingerprint and question a charcoal briquet, so Bullitt had to do some more cop work before eventually bringing down the top baddy in the passenger terminal at SFO. That airport just so happens to be about in the middle between Candlestick Park, where the San Francisco Giants used to play, and AT&T Park, which is the team's present home.
That's an interesting connection to today's candidate because this 1990 Mustang LX is not only a Giants fan mobile, but as its described as a former CHP ride, it has a familial link to Bullitt's green machine.
California's Highway Patrol - which is undisputedly the best Highway Patrol - asked Ford for a pursuit edition of the Mustang as their then standard Crown Vics were a little too big boned for chasing down speeders on roads such as the ribbon-like stretch of macadam known as the Central Valley's I5.
The CHP had tested Camaros as well, but those cars proved to be too tight for all the Motorolas and scatter guns and whatnot, and their durability was called into question by the force's grueling performance testing. That all resulted in Ford winning the order, and the creation of the Mustang SSP (Special Service Package).
This '90 car appears to be an SSP, or perhaps somebody just got crazy and fitted an LX notch with a pair of A-pillar spots. Whatever, its cop days are long past, and this 5.0-powered coupe is now serving its community as a rolling demonstration of Giants' fandom. Go team.
Painted in iconic orange and black, it also has the team's skyline sunburst emblazoned on its hood. Under that hood sits what's described as a rebuilt 302, and of course this is a multi-point injected mill. There's only 1,000 miles on the build and it's backed up by a T5 with a tee-topped short shifter. A Posi rearend rounds out the driveline goodies, and the car has traded the SSP steelies for a set of black five-spoke alloys.
Inside you'll find a sea of grey and a pair of Lear Siegler sport seats in front of Foxstang's redesigned dash and a Grant three-spoke wheel, which has replaced the standard airbag unit. Maybe the cop cars didn't have a bag, I don't know. There's also a yellow air freshener tree hanging form the rearview, perhaps to rid the car of the funk of donuts and old coffee.
This is obviously a project car, and in fact is not complete. The ad notes the need to plug tab A into slot B and hook up the parking brake before the car will be ready to replicate Bullitt's iconic chase, or even try and pull away on one of San Francisco's many hills.
Finishing the car doesn't look like it would be more than a weekend's work, so that's not really much of an issue in consideration of its price, but of course the paint job is. It would probably be best to also keep in mind that the CHP, while being the best in the world, did tend to beat the ever-living crap out of these cars.
The San Francisco seller is asking $6,000 for his 'Stang, spotlights and all. It's an eye catcher, and has a fresh mill, which should should influence the price, but who exactly would buy it? What do you think about this team player Mustang for $6,000? Is that a price that would have you saying batter up? Or, is this ex-CHP Giants tribute car priced to strike out?
You decide!
San Francisco Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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For $6,000, Is This Mustang A San Francisco Treat?