Your SC looks to be very nice condition. Most be pretty low miles. If you don't have it, buy some collector car insurance for your nice SC. Well worth the money.
Fendertag & VIN # is also on the radiator core support underhood. The 85 is mostly good news as it had strong HD connecting rods vs. the 86-88 turbo I cars. They use a LW rod. Good for lighter recip, bad for running high power through them. It also has what is referred to as a g-head or bathtub style head. In 1986 all the turbo cars went to a swirl chamber head. Out of the box, the early G-heads slightly outflows the swirl heads.
On the downside, the 85's used 6 bolt crank to flywheel fasteners . In 86+ they went to a 8 bolt crank/flywheel. They also only had 10mm headbolts, vs the 1986+ change to 11mm headbolts. Obviously the 11mm headbolts are stronger than the 10mm headbolts. 6 bolt turbo flywheels are getting tougher to find, so keep that in mind.
The tranny you have to be careful of. It is called a a525 tranny. This was derived from the a465 4 speed tranny. Basically the 4 spd. tranny was originally designed for 85-100 HP applications. Chrysler beefed up the tranny in many areas for the HO and turbo applications, but it is still a weak spot. You'll be okay until you start trying to drive 225 HP through it. Chrysler had a major upgrade in 1987 to the tranny's case. Sorry to say that the 87 turbo SC L-bodies did not receive the upgrade (only the larger cars did). Those are called a520 and a555.
The shift linkage rods are also troublesome in these cars. They have plastic or nylon ends & bushings that can fail at any time. We have a couple vendors that have solutions for you. When everything is working properly, these vehicles shift great.
Take good care of your car, as many body panels, weatherstrip, interior trim, etc. are now no longer available. Most of the engine parts are readily available in the aftermarket.
Todd

 

Your SC looks to be very nice condition. Most be pretty low miles. If you don't have it, buy some collector car insurance for your nice SC. Well worth the money.
Fendertag & VIN # is also on the radiator core support underhood. The 85 is mostly good news as it had strong HD connecting rods vs. the 86-88 turbo I cars. They use a LW rod. Good for lighter recip, bad for running high power through them. It also has what is referred to as a g-head or bathtub style head. In 1986 all the turbo cars went to a swirl chamber head. Out of the box, the early G-heads slightly outflows the swirl heads.
On the downside, the 85's used 6 bolt crank to flywheel fasteners . In 86+ they went to a 8 bolt crank/flywheel. They also only had 10mm headbolts, vs the 1986+ change to 11mm headbolts. Obviously the 11mm headbolts are stronger than the 10mm headbolts. 6 bolt turbo flywheels are getting tougher to find, so keep that in mind.
The tranny you have to be careful of. It is called a a525 tranny. This was derived from the a465 4 speed tranny. Basically the 4 spd. tranny was originally designed for 85-100 HP applications. Chrysler beefed up the tranny in many areas for the HO and turbo applications, but it is still a weak spot. You'll be okay until you start trying to drive 225 HP through it. Chrysler had a major upgrade in 1987 to the tranny's case. Sorry to say that the 87 turbo SC L-bodies did not receive the upgrade (only the larger cars did). Those are called a520 and a555.
The shift linkage rods are also troublesome in these cars. They have plastic or nylon ends & bushings that can fail at any time. We have a couple vendors that have solutions for you. When everything is working properly, these vehicles shift great.
Take good care of your car, as many body panels, weatherstrip, interior trim, etc. are now no longer available. Most of the engine parts are readily available in the aftermarket.
Todd

Hey thanks for all that great info! Odometer says 62k and seems believable due to the shape of shifter, clutch pedal and how straight the numbers are on the odometer. I'm not purists in any way but idk how much I plan on doing to this car, it's a nice example of being 100% original. I will most definitely look into replacing the shift linkage ends over the summer. I'd rather be on top of that before it goes wrong. Thank you again!

 

Is there a breakdown of how many cars were produced? I see that 2581 red shelbys were produced but how many were moonroofs and how many were hardtops?

 

Don't know that answer but IMO, be thankful you have the hardtop. When you chop holes in roofs they tend to leak eventually. The weatherstrip gets brittle and hard as a rock. Then they start to leak, and your floors rot out. Four drain holes run down "A" and 'C" pillars I believe and flow into the rocker panels IIRC.
Many years ago I was on the hunt for a 89 turbo Trans Am. Had to be cloth interior and preferred no T-top. "F" body GM's tend to bend in roof if driven hard. Problem for me was they only made 15 of them. Needle in haystack trying to find that! I gave up looking. Now a good friend of mine has super low mile cloth and T-top TTA. He is willing to sell to me, but the T-top part is a no go for me.
A friend of mine has a very nice completely rust free Santa Fe blue 85 SC. It came out of Washington state. I helped him convert to a TII car about 6 years or so ago. I had a very nice black with silver SC. Had the rare Spearco intercooler kit, claw and pawl LSD, Koni's, Hella H4 conversion, as well as rare Leman's catalog wheels. Probably shouldn't have sold that one...

 

Don't know that answer but IMO, be thankful you have the hardtop. When you chop holes in roofs they tend to leak eventually. The weatherstrip gets brittle and hard as a rock. Then they start to leak, and your floors rot out. Four drain holes run down "A" and 'C" pillars I believe and flow into the rocker panels IIRC.
Many years ago I was on the hunt for a 89 turbo Trans Am. Had to be cloth interior and preferred no T-top. "F" body GM's tend to bend in roof if driven hard. Problem for me was they only made 15 of them. Needle in haystack trying to find that! I gave up looking. Now a good friend of mine has super low mile cloth and T-top TTA. He is willing to sell to me, but the T-top part is a no go for me.
A friend of mine has a very nice completely rust free Santa Fe blue 85 SC. It came out of Washington state. I helped him convert to a TII car about 6 years or so ago. I had a very nice black with silver SC. Had the rare Spearco intercooler kit, claw and pawl LSD, Koni's, Hella H4 conversion, as well as rare Leman's catalog wheels. Probably shouldn't have sold that one...
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Yeah I wish you hadn't have sold it...so you can sell it to me 🙂. Holy cow is that an amazing looking car! I can remember long ago looking at those wheels in old Hot Rod and other Mags of the day wanting to pull the trigger on them for my Shelby Z and/or Shadow...but never did!!

 

Wow that thing looks incredible! Ya u don't know until u know sometimes with cars unfortunately. I had an 88 caprice 9c1 in high school. Sold it for $400...