McLaren M81 made the Fox-body trot. A look at McLaren's first Mustang.
Marketing Corporation built a single M81 McLaren Mustang in white. With only 863 miles, Kendal Coker is the caretaker of this unique Mustang that had a historic role in reigniting the Mustang's performance image during the 1980s.
After 10 bleak years of a Ford racing ban, leaving the company without any high-performance engines, a glimmer of hope peeked out from behind the dark clouds in 1980 with the emergence of the Ford Motorsports program. Brainstormed and spearheaded by Gary Kohs' Marketing Corporation, its first high-profile project was the M81 McLaren Mustang. Ford bought into Kohs' idea, because it served several purposes: to showcase the 2.3-liter turbo engine, to go racing in IMSA and to create renewed enthusiasm in the youth market for Mustang, which had been revamped in 1979 when it was newly based on Ford's one-year-old Fox-body platform.
In the spring of 1980, Marketing Corporation built a Mustang 3-Door (hatchback)-based M81 McLaren prototype that appeared on the car-show circuit. Along with the prototype came the prospect of expanding the M81 McLaren into a limited-production offering in the high-performance niche vehicle segment.
