Ford delighted fans of the third generation Mustang earlier this week with the debut of the 2026 Mustang GT FX Package. The retro-inspired theme harks back to the days of the car's Fox Body era, complete with an oh-so-sweet Adriatic Blue Metallic exterior hue. It's undoubtedly awesome — but also, admittedly, a bit out of the ('90s-era) blue.

To find out more about what led to Ford offering the Mustang GT Premium-specific FX Package, Road & Track sat down with the designers behind the project to better understand how the Fox Body influence came into the fold, and the challenges of modernizing iconic design choices.

First, a little history. The Fox Body was introduced in 1979 as the replacement for the much-derided Mustang II. The platform would underpin the Mustang through 1993, with the updated SN95 arriving for 1994 (which in itself was a largely updated Fox platform). That makes the car the longest-running generation of Mustang, all but ensuring its place in the automotive canon. It’s only natural that Ford’s designers were drawn to the car.

The early ideation behind this project dating back to around 2021, according to senior designer Stefan Taylor. That said, the whole project really began as an exercise in 1980s-inspired wheel design.

2026 Ford Mustang GT FX Package with 1993 Cobra to its right

“There's all these eras and seasons of Mustang history,” Taylor tells R&T. “And it can be a blessing and a curse, and it's amazing to pull from — but there's also a lot of expectation to have certain things from certain generations, or a little bit of historical inspiration."

"But it all kind of started with looking at wheel trends and some of this, you know, '80s-inspired racing wheels coming back," he says. "And we're like, 'Oh, we really want to figure out a way to do one of those wheels.'"

”And then we started looking at the Fox Body part of it.”

Taylor notes that a teal-hued 1993 Mustang Cobra from Ford’s own heritage collection was already on the Mustang team’s inspiration board for the S650 generation. Instead of simply trying to copy the original wheel design on that car, the crew decided to take elements from all sorts of Mustangs from the Fox Body era. Given Taylor’s love for the track, that inspiration even included some of our favorite racing Foxes.

Close up of Mustang GT FX Package performance wheel option

“I definitely, with the wheel inspiration, was looking at a lot of the racing — you know, IMSA cars of the day, like the Zakspeeds. And even the GTP Mustang, which looked more like a Group C car than a Mustang,” says Taylor.

That said, the teams were careful not to ape anything directly from the Fox Body Mustang GTs we all know well; Ford does love retro-futurism, but the design team always tries to keep pushing things forward. The interior is a great example of that, with cloth inserts inspired by the fabric seat option from that period. It does enough to harken back to that era, but with modern materials and tech. (Your Fox isn’t going to provide heated and cooled seats, for instance).

The white wheels and details are another nod to the original car, but they're done in a very modern way. Even the retro "Mustang" script combines the S650 font with the oh-so 1980s one.

2026 Ford Mustang GT FX cloth seat insert closeups in purple colored studio

“We didn't directly take anything from the Fox Body,” says Taylor. “As much as I would have loved some round fog lamps on the bottom, right? What we want to do is keep moving Mustang forward in design, as well. And so that's sort of where some of the innovation comes in. Even if it does seem like, 'Oh, we're looking back' — we're still looking forward, as well.”

The first-generation Mustang has dominated the car’s appearance and attitude for decades; even the S650 can’t quite let go of the early design language, despite the last three generations of car doing their best 1965 impression. So it’s interesting to see the Fox Body grow into such an impactful part of the model’s history, especially with factory involvement. That said, it was never going to be the Mustang II that dethroned the original pony car.

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