In the last year, the value of the vintage 1987 Ford Mustang 5.0 increased by nearly 42% compared to the previous year, according to CarGurus.com; the 1990 model increased by 28% in value.
The considerable uptick in sales and prices of most of the third-generation Fox body Mustangs, made between 1987 and 1993, can be partially traced back to Dallas, specifically to the former hometown rapper.
In 1990, Vanilla Ice's rap track "Ice Ice Baby" took the No. 1 spot on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 record chart. The accompanying music video depicted the artist driving his white 1989 Ford Mustang on Dallas streets. The image and the song never really left the public consciousness, and today they're all the more prominent thanks to TikTok.
One TikTok user named debinthehouse reminisced on Vanilla Ice’s timeline with the comment: "Cruising down Forest Lane with you and hanging out in the Burger King parking lot in the '80s."
Forest Lane was a popular weekend spot for teenagers, where a 3-mile cruise strip stretched from Webb Chapel to Inwood. A D Magazine article published in the mid-'90s describes the scene as, "Many were looking for a drag race; others were just looking."
Then, in 1991, right about when Vanilla Ice dropped his "Rollin' in my 5.0" single, paying further homage to his Fox body Mustang, the city of Dallas added signs prohibiting U-turns on the Forest Lane strip. And the cops busted cruisers left and right, according to the article: "By early 1992, teenagers stopped coming to Forest altogether ..."
Before he was an American Music Awards winner, Ice was known by former peers from the now-defunct City Lights nightclub in South Dallas and Mustang fanatics as Robert Matthew Van Winkle, his birth name. The rapper doesn't forget his "Cool as Ice" heyday, and often speaks of the late 1980s and early 1990s memories of cruising in his Ford Mustang around The Big D.
Last year, Van Winkle posted an old photo of himself and his Mustang with the downtown Dallas skyline in the background. "Here’s the OG 5.0. [I] still have it," he captioned the photo, which was taken before "Ice Ice Baby" became big. He continued, "I never thought this car would be such a[n] iconic memory of the 90s. I collect cars now, and none of them I have more emotion than this car because of the 90s [were] the greatest decade ever. The Fox body Mustang has become a[n] icon because of the times. It brings back all the memories, bloc[k] parties, drag racing, keg parties, And the girls. LOL We didn’t need fortnight [sic]. We got out of the house and had fun."
"I remember seeing you ride the streets in Carrollton in this," recounted a woman named Sonja on Facebook. "Great memories, for sure."
Van Winkle attended R.L. Turner High School in Carrollton. His white, 225-horsepower Mustang, with a white convertible top, white Fittipaldi star wheels and white interior parts, was hard to miss rolling through the Dallas neighborhoods in the early '90s. Its dual mufflers emitted a deep throaty rumble when Van Winkle would floor the accelerator and burn out — and the stereo "With the bass kicked in, the [Cerwin] Vegas are pumpin," as he rapped in "Ice Ice Baby."
Dallas residents could hear the "Ice Ice Baby" bass line, sampled from the classic Queen and David Bowie "Under Pressure" collaboration, blocks away. And by the time folks would do a double take, the rapper's Mustang with the "GO ICE" vanity license plates had already passed them by.
It seemed much of the "Ice Ice Baby" music video was shot in Miami, but according to a Central Track article, the clips were shot here in Dallas, particularly in Deep Ellum: "Take, for instance, the scene where he’s riding around in his 5.0 past all those kids dancing and loitering on Crowdus Street near the current home of the Curtain Club ... you can clearly see him and the dancers he recruited from Dallas’ City Lights club breaking on a Dallas rooftop with the Bank of America building clearly lit up in neon green behind them."
Underneath the Mustang 5.0 posts on Vanilla Ice's social media accounts, fans all over the U.S. commented that the images of Vanilla rapping, "Rollin' in my 5.0 / With my ragtop down so my hair can blow" in the "Ice Ice Baby" video had inspired them to purchase a Generation 3 Fox-body Mustang.
Chris Savard, now 41, lives in Austin and remembers Vanilla Ice on the radio and in music videos back in the day.
"I think Vanilla Ice, or Rob, will have a lasting impression on the Fox body Mustang, and it's the nostalgia," he tells the Observer.
Being a hardcore Fox body Mustang collector, Savard and hundreds of Mustang owners rendezvoused at the Late Model Restoration Cruise-In at the Texas Motor Speedway on Oct. 22.
@vanillaiceme Word to the 5.0, yes indeed I do still have my original 5.0 mustang from the video ice ice baby. Check it out. #5.0 #VanillaIce #IceIceBaby #Mustang #RollinInMy5.0 #LegendaryCar ♬original sound - Vanilla Ice
"A lot of parents now reminisce," Savard says. "These Mustangs are becoming a classic; it's becoming more of a name in the household. For example, there was a group of five kids with their skateboards, I heard one kid say, 'Look at the Fox body' — nobody called these Fox bodies back in the day. They were called 5.0."
Mustang folks can thank Van Winkle for introducing the Fox body Mustang to the next generation. In June, he posted a video of his restored car on TikTok, where the highest percentage of users range between 10 and 19 years old. The video — which he captioned, "Word to the 5.0, yes indeed I do still have my original 5.0 mustang from the video ice ice baby. Check it out. #5.0 #VanillaIce #IceIceBaby #Mustang #RollinInMy5.0 #LegendaryCar" — garnered almost 900,000 likes and was re-shared over 33,000 times.
Savard caught a glimpse of it after it went viral.
"From a style standpoint, when you see Vanilla Ice today, maybe he doesn't have the hair the same way, but he's very true to that 1990s era, and the car speaks [of] that," Savard says. "I like the red and white interior. He's got that cupid, angel-looking logo, and it's personalized very well. The dash is all Alcantara suede with the diamond-stitched patterned seats."
Savard knows Fox body Mustangs well, as he customizes and restores them for a living. His YouTube channel, The Infamous Project, shows his various Fox body Mustang builds. He's even interviewed Van Winkle on camera about his Mustang.
"That steering wheel could still be the original one to this day because in the 'Rolling in my 5.0' music video, the steering wheel is all white," Savard says of Ice's Mustang. "Maybe the horn section was updated. He also has a polished Vortech supercharger on a small block pushrod V8 motor. He's added some nice tweaks and subtleties."
Jenn Highley, the event organizer for Foxtober Fest, an annual car show in Concord, North Carolina, which focuses on the Fox body Mustangs, says the three-day festival that started on Oct. 12 drew 726 Fox body Mustangs, many from Texas.
"It's the longest-running generation of 15 years of Foxes, and no Mustang generation lasted that long,” she says. “And now, they are old enough to be cool, and the '80s and '90s are coming back so people that just happen to own a Fox are now like, 'You'll give me how much for this?'
The Fox body Mustang was manufactured between 1979 and 1993. The first look, 1979–1982, had the headlights indented, and the 1983–1986 style had flush headlights. The last look was Vanilla Ice's model, which went from 1987 to 1993 and was the most aerodynamic.
Highley says that at her show, which Savard attended as well, there were a few "Ice Ice Baby"-influenced Mustangs even sporting replica "GO ICE" vanity plates, and the owners playing Vanilla's To The Extreme cassettes.
"It's mostly the guys in their 40s, 50s," Highley says. "So now, their kids are grown, either in college or out of college or about to go into college, and the kids don't need that much maintenance. So they're still working, and now that their kids are gone, and they're like, 'I have all this money to buy a Vanilla Ice car.'"
On a quick search online, you can find a 1989 Ford Mustang GT, the same year as Van Winkle's, selling for $28,500 in Wylie. A 1988 Mustang in Burleson is selling for almost $16,000. There were hardly any more for sale, especially the 1991 model which increased in value since last year.
Highley says the price increase follows the manufacturing pattern. In 1990, she says, 128,189 Ford Mustangs were made, and in 1991 only 98,737 were produced. The next year, that number dropped to 79,280.
With the later Mustangs scarcer than those of the previous production years and the demand increasing thanks to Vanilla Ice, the price increase only makes sense. Now, if only he could bring back '90s gas prices.
