"mystery machine"

Dave's '93 LX

Article by: Caleb Richards

    One thing that can't be ignored in the fox body sphere is that stock fox values are on the rise. If you had told me this 15 years ago I probably would have laughed at the notion. When I went fox shopping, the more mods the car had, meant parts I didn't have to buy. The car was going to be modded, so anything already done just saved me time and money. That was however, 15 years ago. As we usher in 2018, the landscape has changed drastically, right before my eyes. A clean, original fox is going to fetch a pretty penny, and there is no shortage of people hunting them. This isn't crystal ball speak, I have the emails and private messages to prove it. This is reality. This also makes me wish a few of my past foxes were still with me, actually all of them for that matter. 

    As I trolled the car show area at the NMRA World Finals this year, I noted a small crowd around a single car. To the left and right were some heavily modified S197 cars, but nobody seemed to care. The closer I got to the crowd, the reason became clear. There sat a silver notchback, that appeared to be stock, and very low miles. As I performed my usual walk around, it was obvious how nice this car really was. I hung around for a bit to spot the owner, but with deadlines looming, I needed to get back on the starting line. 

    When Sunday rolled around, my plan was to find the owner of this car, and corner him for a photo shoot. I can count on one hand how many original notchbacks I had seen this year, out of thousands of foxes. They either don't exist anymore, or nobody is getting them out of the garage. Perhaps its a little of both. I had seen many '93 Cobras, Saleens, even a SAAC; but no original coupes. I was not going to miss a chance at shooting this car.

    Later that afternoon, I finally caught the owner, who agreed to let me shoot the car. Once the car was moved to the shoot area, we began talking about it. It was a '93, and had just 21k miles on the clock. Aside from chrome pony wheels, a March air box, headers, and exhaust; it was rock stock. Even the half mile long shifter handle remained. "Dave" is from the Lousiville area, and also owns a show quality Calypso green hatch, with an underside as clean as the top side. 

    One topic of conversation was how much attention the car was getting. I wasn't the only one that noticed it stealing the snow from GT500s and whippled Terminators. Dave also had received multiple offers to sell the car. Now we aren't talking about "hey do you want to sell the car" offers. We are talking about piles of money placed on the hood, totaling nearly $20,000. Despite the large piles of greenbacks, Dave was having none of it. How do you put a value on something that so many people want, yet so few exist? That is the reality I speak of; it is a sellers market. 

    After shooting the car, and speaking at length with Dave about how I would donate one of my body parts to own it, I gave Dave my email so he could fill out the FCM feature submission form. Dave isn't into social media, and said he would get the form emailed to me once he returned home. Unfortunately I never heard from Dave. Waiting over six months to feature this amazing coupe, I decided to just tell the story.

    As much as I hate to say it, cars like this are very hard to find, and will only get scarcer. I still see the comments "they made a million of them" all over Facebook, and get a laugh from them. Who would have thought that with all of the Saleens and Cobras, a lowly notch would be one of the most coveted of foxes. Mostly it stems from the cars being raced and modified, due to being lighter, and slightly more rigid; few were ever put away like a more expensive Saleen. If you have a chance to buy a notch in this condition; don't hesitate. CR