Carlisle Ford Nationals – 2025 Trip Report
The latest iteration of the Carlisle Ford Nationals was held June 6-8, 2025 in Carlisle, PA. We attended as a club and had a tent location which was centrally to the action – this was different from recent years where we have been pushed off to the far side of the show field. It was cool to be centrally located.
We are a relatively small club and if you’d like to join us for next year, please keep visiting the site for more details on that. We get a tent every year and this comes in handy to keep us out of the sun (and rain).
This is my report on this years show.
Travel
Traveling in a fox-body convertible is never easy. My trip to Carlisle was just about 300 miles each way. Road noise in the convertible is generally pretty bad and listening to anything on the stereo is difficult. My maximum stereo volume is pretty low. Last year I had the factory stereo refurbished and bluetooth added. I think it was louder before this upgrade when I had used a mod for line-in through the antenna. Recently, I’ve given up on using the bluetooth connection and have been using my phone with AirPods.
On this trip there were two of us so in order to have something we could both listen to, we used a JBL Charge 5 which fit nicely on the dashboard. It was almost like this dashboard shelf was made for it. I also went with a windshield suction cup mount for my phone after struggling with other options including just letting the phone sit in the cubby under the stereo. The mount was the right choice.
After the 5 hour drive and hotel check-in, I washed the car at the show field. I need to do a post on car show washing as I see many people doing some incorrect things when they wash their car at Carlisle. Since it was Thursday and after 5:00 PM, it was pretty quiet at the wash area. I was able to take my time with both the washing and the drying.
The Friday rain
With the car washed, I was able to just pull in and park on Friday and finish the detailing focusing on the interior and under hood areas. It all went pretty quick. I really need to get to Carlisle on Thursday in time to wash every year.
On Friday afternoon, the rain moved in. We had about 1 hour of heavy, blowing rain.
If there was any good indication of the amount of rain we saw, one came from the food stand across from our tent which had a clear plastic bin with their condiments in it. During the storm, this tray filled with what looked to be 3 inches of water once the condiments themselves were removed.
My car only had a little water inside which got there from the blowing wind through the seam between the door and quarter window glass.
Ford’s give-away item – dog tags
It was the same old thing Ford has done for years – enter to win a Ford Mustang by providing your personal information to Ford and get a small token of appreciation. We’ve see some pretty ordinary key chains in the last two years once Ford stopped giving away t-shirts. T-shirts were the best and you still see people at the show with those shirts from previous years.
This year’s give-away item was dog tags. On the surface, this seemed pretty ordinary like the key chains were…except…I learned that the colored dog tags given away on Friday were limited in quantity. There were only 100 of each color before they switched over to the standard, unpainted silver tags. The colors I saw were yellow, white, bright red, dark red, black and gray.
Because I had several members in my family group, we were able to get one of each of the colors that best corresponded with feature car colors – yellow, bright red and white.
These are pretty cool souvenirs and one will be hanging from the mirror in my triple white. I hope they do something like this again next year. I am also curious where else they will be giving away the painted versions of these tags.
2026 Mustang GT with FX package
On Friday, there was word that there was to be a special announcement coming on Saturday morning. No additional information was given. This was part of an email that went out to club leaders –
Third, there will be a special surprise for those attendees on Saturday morning! We can’t say what it is yet but there will be a cool announcement coming on early Saturday morning so stay tuned to our Facebook page. It’s going to be something many will not want to miss.
The special surprise was the announcement of the FX Package. The FX Package turned out to be a fox-body inspired package for the Mustang GT Premium. Ford has many details on their site.
My observation is that it’s kind of weird with details that are really hard to relate back to the fox-body Mustang. The wheels just don’t make any sense. While I appreciate the Mustang lettering on the rear window being in the fox-body font, I think it would have been better on the side quarter windows. I also noticed that this logo was just a sticker on the window. Let’s hope that actual production will print this logo onto the glass.
The dash has the Mustang GT in the correct period font but just a few feet away on the door sill, the standard 2026 Mustang font is used. Come on Ford.
My favorite part was the seats with a plaid insert. We have seen some fox-body era seats with tweed inserts such as the ones from 1987 to 1989. This is a nice touch. One person I talked with at the show, who was also looking at the car when I was, said it was very much like the VW Golf. I agree.
There was a Mustang GT there with some of the appearance items from the FX Package. This car was Molten Magenta Metallic Tri-coat and had white wheels although they were different from the FX Package car. These wheels looked like white painted versions of the 2025’s 19” X 8.5” Premier Polished Aluminum Wheels.
The seats in this car were not Recaro but did have the same patterned inserts as the FX Package car. The Mustang GT script was on the dashboard but there was no script on the rear window and, with this being a convertible, that difference makes sense. In all of the announcements about the Mustang FX Package, only the Adriatic Blue Metallic car is pictured and mentioned in press photos and materials. This one is under the radar of most reports on the FX package. I truly hope for these wheels to become the ones offered as part of the FX Package.
My choice as celebrity judge
This year I again had the privileged of being a celebrity judge. It is sometimes difficult to make a choice but this year that was easy. I had very early in my search come upon a black 1993 Mustang GT which was amazing. This car was mistakenly in the 1987-1993 Mustang LX stock class of which my car was a part. It ultimately won first place despite being in the wrong class.
Once I saw the car I ultimately picked, I quicky forgot about the black 1993. I selected a 1987 Mustang GT in Scarlet Red/Titanium over Oxford White/Red. I still have a soft spot for red in the interior. This is a 21k mile car that has been incredibly preserved. Its current owner, who purchased the car in the fall of 2024, has done a great job in keeping it original and using the best replacement parts such as new tires and a replacement top.
The car was riding on reproduction Goodyear gatorbacks. It has some unique options such as a 3.08 rear and a cassette stereo with equalizer. I love to find such as gem as this car is. It was fun to look at and to talk with it’s owner Frank from New Jersey. Frank knew a lot about the car and some of the unique things on an early production 1987 Mustang of which this is one.
Saturday turn out
Saturday started with rain but cleared up and was an awesome day. We had 5 limited editions at the tent. 2 triple whites; 2 vibrant reds and one 7-up emerald green. Mike’s 1992 red feature car (closest to the tent) ended up taking 2nd place in our class.
Car detailing on the road
I am a chronic over packer on all fronts; clothes, shoes, cables, socks and even towels. This section is mostly for me so that I have this information for next year. The towels that I did use this year were as follows. Pictured left to right; top to bottom
- Microfiber wash pad for the car
- Microfiber wash mitt for the wheels
- 1 large waffle weave towel for bulk drying after the wash (green)
- 3 low pile drying aid towels for drying after the rain storm (orange)
- 1 low pile drying aid towel for door jambs/hood and trunk edges (gray)
- 2 edgeless interior towels for drying wheels (darker blue)
- 3 all-purpose towels for under hood dusting and applying protectant (yellow)
- 2 small waffle weave towels for final drying after wash (lighter blue)
This year I did do a fulll wash but also did a wipe down after the rain ended. More rain would have required more towels. I brought about 3 times this many towels.
Closing thoughts
My trip home was uneventful. No rain which is really the most you can hope for on a rainy weekend. No rain on either leg of the trip definitely helps with keeping the car clean. There’s a joke that we tell in my friend group – if you are ever shopping for a used Mustang and the owner states that it has never seen rain just ask them if it’s ever been to Carlisle. This will give you the truth.