24 years after I bought my original Mustang SVO, I'm still a big fan, and I've put several items on my website explaining that.
My involvement with Ford started during college, when I had an old Mustang that just about literally rusted in half. My Mustang hobby took a turn for the better when I bought a brand new (original) 1979 Mustang and took up road rallies, autocross, and then Open Track events. That led me to a gig helping with a race event at Nelson Ledges for several years, during which three of them Ford brought it's own development cars to race. The cars in two of those years were pre-production prototypes of the Mustang SVO. I worked directly in the pits with the Ford crew ands got to see everything and talk to everyone. I've written it up here: http://www.drivingenthusiast.net/sec-ford/special-reports/svo/index.htm - and it includes pictures and other information which are unique to the web.
The great race results of the SVOs and my talks with their engineers at the event led directly to my purchase of a new SVO shortly after they came out. The price was a then-astronomical $17,000. I used that car for several Open Track events for a couple of years. It was very nicely balanced, and it was the only Mustang that came from the factory with decent brakes and handling... the GT of it's age being embarrassingly bad in both areas. I had an early model SVO, and it while it wasn't perfect it was far ahead of the Mustang GTs of the same years.
Now, over 20 years later, I've been playing around with adding an original Mustang SVO to my "fleet". The car wouldn't cut it anymore as a track car, but it would be a nice project to work on. Finding a clean model isn't impossible, especially with some patience. But my time is very limited, and my automotive hobby doesn't get much of a time slice anymore. If I do find one, I want it to be in near-perfect condition.
There are also a couple of very active Mustang SVO groups, such as the SVO Club of America (SVOCA): http://www.svoca.com/ The following picture is from an autocross at their yearly convention, which for the second straight year in a row other responsibilities have prevented me from attending. Looking thru the pictures it's clear that there are very clean and well-maintained SVOs to be had. The following gorgeous blue example would be perfect.
So we'll see if I can find the time to do one of these someday soon. Meanwhile, there's a lot more from Nelson Ledges to write up and get into my site, and I've even located a few of the original folks that were involved in that event.
