Funny thing about the 70’s — they weren’t very funny, except Saturday Night Live (yeah, that show used to be funny!). So much was in disarray, and the auto industry was no exception. The oil crisis of 1973 had messed up the comfort zone of the Big Four (the carnage was going to reduce that to the Big Three and eventually make even that term irrelevant).

One solution Ford was getting ready to try was turbocharging. Used for over a decade at the Indianapolis 500 by the Offenhauser team, Ford decided to debut it on its new Foxbody Mustang for 1979 using the Lima 2.3L four-cylinder. Nearly reaching the magic 1 hp per cubic inch hotrod standard of the day, it was only 8 hp shy of the V-8 engine at less than half the displacement.

An AiResearch T-3 unit would become the choice turbocharger for the Fox Mustangs. By “choice,” I don’t mean it was a good one. It was expensive to replace, typically over a thousand dollars for a rebuilt unit (in ’80s dollars), and it seemed it had to be replaced often. Like the Boss 302 motor from a decade earlier, it suffered from an inadequate oiling system.

But the 63rd Indy 500 would be paced by ’79 Mustangs with Jack Roush–prepped 5.0L engines and Jackie Stewart at the wheel. And for good reason — reliability would haunt the four-banger motor as long as there was a carburetor on top.

Still, the public was ready for this new way to power their rides. So ready, in fact, that nearly 33,000 Mustangs were sold with the W-code Turbo-Four. That represented nearly 10 percent of Mustang sales for the ’79 model year. With the Pace Car Mustangs, well over half were ordered with the turbo. Only available with a manual transmission, a handful were produced with the four-speed Overdrive transmission. A couple of these were sold overseas, and 16 of them were sold in the United States.

Mustang seats were never conducive to long trips, but the addition of the Recaro bucket seats in the Pace Cars drove up the comfort factor substantially. American fascination with Europe was growing at this time, and the choice of the German-made Recaro seat fit well with the whole Euro-look of the third-generation Mustang. Also available were the special TRX tires, wheels, and suspension based on a 390mm-diameter wheel. Replacement of these metric tires was a challenge in the first few years. The new Mustang fit with the public so well that over a third of a million were sold that year, besting Camaro and Firebird production by tens of thousands of units. Sales of Mustangs hadn’t been so swift since the debut of the Mustang II in 1974.

Although the Mustang Pace Car was designed and marketed for a United States audience, some were sold in Canada and overseas. Nearly 600 Pace Cars were shipped to Canada, but the turbocharged version was ordered by only 34 customers. Less than 5 percent of all ’79 model Mustangs that were shipped north of the border carried the W-code in the serial number.

Sales outside of North America were a scant 76 Pace Cars, and only four of them were turbocharged. But the Europeans were much more comfortable with ordering their Mustangs turbocharged, with one in six Mustangs being ordered this way for that model year, well-eclipsing the American penetration rate.

Pace Car Mustangs were produced with flip-up open-air roofs. The three Mustangs that actually paced the Indianapolis 500 race were modified with T-tops fitted by Cars and Concepts, the same company that would begin producing the Mustang convertibles during the ’80s. You could not order your Pace Car with the T-top. That option would not reappear on the Mustang until 1981.

The white Mustang pictured was originally painted Light Pewter Metallic for the Indianapolis 500. However, it started life as a white Mustang with a blue interior. Jack Roush prepped these cars for pacing by taking three of the original Introductory Show Units and modifying the 302 engines. After the race, Roush returned this car to a white color, where it saw Pace Car duties again at the debut of the Detroit Grand Prix in 1982. Today it resides in Jack Roush’s museum in Livonia, Michigan.

*The V-8 version of the Pace Car has an “F” in the engine position of the VIN whereas the Turbo-4 will have a “W.” No other engines were available for the Indy Replicars. The automatic transmission available with the V-8 5.0L was a C-4 automatic and had a code of “W.” The manual transmission used on the 2.3L was coded as a “6.” The Overdrive manual transmission used on the 5.0 was coded “5” as well as the ultrarare one available on the 2.3L.

The quickest way to identify a true ’79 Pace Car as authentic is the serial number. Ford used the sequence number as the identifier. Like the ’69 Shelby Mustang, the first two digits begin with “48,” and even though there were 10,478 Pace Cars built, every one sold to the public began with “48.” The reason this was possible is that Ford was once again building Mustangs at the San Jose assembly plant. Both plants started numbering Pace Cars from 480001.

Pace Car Mustangs were available with most of the options available for the regular Mustangs. You could even order an air conditioner with your Turbo Pace Car. But 163 buyers must have been real serious about why they bought their Indy Replicar. They ordered them with no options. Guess we know who really wanted to be out in front.