Yeah, the Mustang were the King of the Road in the late 80's early 90's when I was a teenager. Yeah, the rich kids got 5L HO 5 spd cars. I always thought they were ugly, didn't care how fast they were. My Ex BIL spanked a bunch of them in a 71 Chevelle with a done up 327, that car was fast but he blew the motor. The cars from the mid 70's were huge and underpowered. The late 70's, early 80's cars were embarrassing. The only thing a 267 chebby could beat was a 3.8 or Olds 260. We had an 82 Thunderbird with the 265 getting work done at a Ford dealer, it would have dusted the 267, surprisingly quick. It must have had the optional gearing or just been a good example. Most Japanese 4 cyl cars were way lighter and had a 5 spd and reasonable gearing. My 95 HP 1980 Toyota 1/4 ton weighed nothing, it was surprisingly quick. Add a 1000 pounds, terrible gearing and a V8, 260 or 267 barely made more HP in the G body than that 2.2 Toyota 4 cyl. It would have been neck and neck. The Camaro and Firebird, GM did weird things in those, unless you got certain years of the 5L, had to be TPI, not the TBI and a 5 spd or the TPI 350/700R4, they got left in the dust. It had a dog reputation compared to the Mustang but looked so much better, especially the Firebird with the body mouldings added. I rode with a guy who had a gorgeous red 92 5L TPI 5 spd Firebird with a few extras, it would have given any stockish 5L Mustang's a really good race, pretty quick and looked so much better. Our Oldsmobile and their V8's were the only cars we owned that weren't garbage. Our Ford's from the late 70's were terrible, just junk. Our Dodge's were finicky, like all Dodge's, ran like sh*t. Our GM trucks were Ok but didn't last near as many miles as the Olds V8's. Vehicles had a terrible 10 years, 75 to about 85 weren't great for performance.