While ’79-’93 Fox-body Mustangs are all the rage these days, there is another Fox-based Ford car that’s also just as cool. And not only that, it accepts many of the same upgrades that can be fitted to Fox 5.0s, because under the skin, it’s basically just a longer wheelbase version of the same car.

What we’re talking about, of course, are the ’83-’88 Thunderbird coupes that were offered with both a 2.3-liter turbocharged inline four and a 5.0-liter V8.

Considered to be the 9th-generation of the T-bird, the ability to make these “Fox Birds” go faster and handle better hasn’t been lost on an old friend of ours. He’s fixed up this relatively pedestrian ’88 coupe to likely handle about as good as an S550 Mustang.

With the Cobra suspension, SN-95 17×8-inch wheels and 245/45ZR17 tires, this Fox Thunderbird has the perfect stance. We’ve driven the car and its impressive handling capabilities were apparent in the very first turn.

Rory Fontana built the car in his shop, Fontana Motorsports, in between working on customer cars, which includes pretty much all makes and models of vintage and late-model GM, Ford and Mopar street machines and hot rods.

The car’s basically stock non-H.O. 5.0 rated at 155 horsepower gets the car down the road for now and is enough to throw it into a corner and hang on. It corners like it’s on rails and with an extra 200 or so horsepower that will possibly be added in the near future, it would certainly be that much more fun.

“This car started as just a regular V8 T-bird with an automatic,” Rory related. “It still has the stock 5.0 V8 in it, which is not an H.O. version as was equipped in ’87-’93 Mustang 5.0s. This means it makes considerably less than the 225 horsepower the Mustang-version engines produced.”

Not doing much of anything yet with the engine, Rory went the full canyon-carver route instead, beginning by swapping in a new Ford Racing T-5 “Z” (PN M-7003-Z) five-speed trans with a 2.95:1 low and a .63:1 overdrive. This transmission is pretty much the best T-5 you can get and has several notable features including double-moly 2nd speed, 3rd speed, and countershaft cluster gears; carbon-fiber 3-4 blocker rings; improved synchronizers and bearings; a Cobra-style pocket bearing; a 1 1/16-inch, 10-spline input shaft; a 28-spline output shaft; and a steel input-bearing retainer.

Beyond that, it’s all suspension underpinnings with the main star being a complete ’99/’01 Cobra independent rear suspension, along with a full set of SN-95 Cobra brakes and 3.73:1 gears. Rory also added a set of custom shop-built subframe connectors as well as a pair of Maximum Motorsports caster/camber plates.

With the ’04 Terminator Cobra now almost 13 years old, it sometimes seems to have been forgotten they had an IRS. It was a sporadic history with SN-95 Cobras as the ’99 new-edge cars were the first Mustang ever factory-equipped with an IRS. There wasn’t a regular Cobra for 2000 and only 300 Cobra Rs were built. The IRS Cobra came back for 2001, but there was no SVT Cobra in 2002. The final hurrah for the SN-95 IRS was the ’03-’04 supercharged Terminator Cobras, making the ’04 the last Mustang with an IRS until the current 2015-17 S550 platform.

Rory went with an ’01 Cobra IRS and the Cobra-specific exhaust is also apparent. It runs underneath the suspension instead of it going up and over a standard solid rear axle such as it would with an 8.8- or a 9- inch.

For wheels and tires, the SN-95 Mustang parts well was again tapped with standard 17×8-inch ’01 Mustang Cobra wheels and a set of Goodyear 245/45ZR17 tires all around.

“I built this car for the canyons,” said Rory. “And down the road, I will consider adding more power to the car with a good 306ci or 347ci short-block and some good aluminum heads.”

The Cobra brakes work great on the “Fox Bird” and there are also QA1 shocks along with stock SN-95 Cobra springs. Funky, silly digital dash? In the dumpster it went. A proper Turbo Coupe analog cluster was swapped in. Improvement? Priceless.

Rory also loves Mustangs on both the vintage and late-model sides as you can see by the cars shown below. In addition, he is, like us, a true all-around Ford guy who proved that by creating this tricked-out T-bird built to tackle the twisties like a go kart. “I have always liked Fox-body Thunderbirds,” he told us. “And I have always wanted to swap an IRS into one,” he continued. Mission accomplished, we’d say.

All Kinds of Mustangs Too

Before the EcoBoost, there was also this ’14 Coyote GT that was updated with a bunch of S197 Boss 302 stuff including the wheels.

There was also this pristine ’70 fastback in the mix. A total creampuff, this two-barrel 302ci-powered cruiser had a deluxe interior and had its original Medium Blue paint. We were bummed out when Rory sold this one.