Yes, the FOX body cars are very light to start with, my 78 Fairmont 2 door sedan was about as bare as they come, 4 cylinder, 4 speed manual, manual steering and brakes, no rear defogger, no day/nite rear view mirror, 1 Pinto style door mirror, no stainless trim around the door frames, it was also the only Fairmont of the 8 that I have owned, that had black plastic inside door handles and window cranks. (all the others had chromed metal). No rubber bumper guards, hood ornament, radio delete,if it had ANY factory options, I don`t know what they would be. When I bought the car in 1986, (it had came into the dealership I worked at as a trade in), I took it to a truck scale, and with 1/2 tank of gas, and the spare tire and jack in place, only weighed 2680 pounds ! The Fairmonts were the first of the FOX body Fords, and much magazine conversation revolved around how the FOX cars were very focused on weight reduction. Thinner sheet metal, thin window glass, aluminum bumpers F&R, lots of holes punched into the body structure and chassis, the revolutionary (for the time) modified strut front suspension with an aluminum rack and pinion etc. My Fairmont is still wearing all its original steel body panels, its aluminum bumpers (with energy absorbing cylinders and bracing removed), stock window glass, although I did remove the steel guard beams from both doors), removed the heater assembly and misc un needed bits and pieces. And although I did install a tubular front K member when I put the small block in a few years ago (didn`t want to alter the original Kmember that was modified for the FE), it still has the heavy factory lower control arms and coil springs in the stock location. It still has the stock dashboard, door panels, full carpeting, although the stock seats were replaced with a pair of plastic buckets. They certainly do make a decent platform for a race car, and at the time, they were dirt cheap and readily available. Now nice examples are getting harder to find.
