1989 Mustang Resurrection - Shining Star - Blown And Blinged '89 LX

We often hear about Mustang enthusiasts who have brought their hapless 'Stangs back from the dead-or close to it. One can only figure that folks like this are driven purely by a vision or belief that a diamond really can exist in the roughest of the rough. Jeff Star, a Phoenix, Arizona, real estate agent and owner/builder of this gorgeous '89 LX definitely fits the description of this type of automotive savior.

According to Jeff, the car was "trashed" when he bought it. Its custom red-and-checkered paint job had seen better days and almost all of the (widely despised) Porno Red interior pieces were pretty well hammered. "The car was so gross you wouldn't want to sit in it," Jeff says. He also told us that the engine was, for all intents and purposes, "shot" when he purchased the car. Sure, an assessment like this would make most rational-thinking people wonder, why bother investing time and money in a project that appeared to be doomed from the start, but Jeff saw potential in the car and embarked on a restoration journey that eventually would silence all his critics.

The first order of business on Jeff's restomod agenda was to attack the car's hideous appearance. Working from the inside out, a black and gray color scheme was used to rejuvenate the sorry condition of the interior. The original red trim was scrapped in order to make room for an array of new pieces that included a black dashboard (with gray front pad), center console, door panels (with light gray, front-seat-matching insets and speaker covers), headliner and headliner panels, and pairs of A-pillar, kick, doorsill, and rear interior panels. A new gray carpet was added and the worn-out, original front seats were removed and replaced by light gray seats from Jeff's '97 Mustang. In the rear, Jeff used a stock gray tweed seat he found in a local salvage yard. The new look and feel inside the LX was completed with gray seat belts and a black '86 (non-cruise-control) SVO steering wheel.

For the car's exterior makeover, Jeff's good friend, Wayne Berg, was called on to handle body and paintwork. As you see in the photos that accompany this story, Wayne's skills are phenomenal. In six months, putting in well over 100 hours on the car, Wayne worked the original panels to arrow-straight perfection and applied the four coats of PPG Royal Blue paint and three coats of clear that now makes this hatchback stand out in a crowd. Wayne also installed clear LX taillight lenses and a rear wing from a '93 Cobra, to further establish the car's uniqueness. Eibach lowering springs, and 16-inch ROH ZS wheels with Yokohama 245-50-16 tires were used to give the car its 111/42-inch lower stance and tasteful, sporty appearance.

With restoring the LX's looks handled, the next order of business was resuscitating the dying engine. Jeff had the original 302 block cleaned, honed (despite the engine's poor running condition and smoking tailpipes, the block didn't require an overbore), and decked at a local machine shop. Then, he and his buddies, Rick and Cory Hayduke, whipped up a little go for the LX, in the form of a stout 302 powerplant featuring AFR 165 heads and a Vortech V1 SC-Trim supercharger.