old guy needs fun modern-ish driver

Maybe I missed it, but haven't seen anyone mention an early T-Bird or Fairmont. The Thunderbird and Fairmont was fox based and I bet you could find a clean one with a V8 pretty easily. Pretty much another version of the Lincoln mentioned earlier. Being fox based, they should take a bunch of Mustang parts.

Another option might be the next generation of Thunderbird. They even had an Super Coupe version with an SC V6 and a 5 speed (I think).

Really can't think of anything beyond those outside of what has been mentioned already.

I've thought about this myself, more because I like to drive but I'm too poor to buy whatever I want. So I'm always looking for ideas for drivers that I could get into without the mark up for badges like SS, GT, SRT or R/T.