I hate to break it to you, but Mark VIII's do not have struts (Mark VII's do though). Mark VIII's have upper and lower control arms. A strut suspension doesn't have an upper control arm and the strut is mounted directly to the spindle and turns with the steering. In order for it to do this, there must be a bearing cap on top of the strut so it can rotate freely and not scrape the shock tower when it turns. The Mark VIII's air spring/shock absorber assembly (as Ford Motor Company refers to it)
looks like a McPherson strut because it is a combination of a shock and a spring, hence the common misconception.
Here is a typical strut suspension from the Mustang:
Notice it has no upper control arms and the strut bolts directly to the spindle and turns with the wheels. Strut suspensions have fewer parts than control arm setups and thus cost less to manufacture. Hence their popularity on small, FWD econoboxes.
This is a typical upper and lower control arm design with a combined coil spring/shock absorber assembly similar to the Mark VIII's.
Notice the upper control arm and the shock mounted to the lower control arm, not the spindle. Although the coil spring is mounted to the shock, this is not a McPherson strut. It does not perform the same task as a strut. A strut replaces the upper control arm and acts as a damper, an upper locating link, and dirctly affects the alignment of the front suspension. In a upper/lower control arm design, the shock/spring only acts as a damper and does not locate the suspension or affect alignment. Upper/lower control arm suspensions have more parts and are more expensive to produce, thus they are more prevalent on higher end RWD vehicles.
Unfortunately, I realize that nobody's ever going to stop calling them "struts". They look like struts, therefore they must be struts. And that's okay. But I will never call a Mark VIII's shock a "strut". However, I will call a Mark VII's shocks struts, because they are
. The VII was a Fox-based car and did indeed use struts. But that's a whole other discussion.
And...apologies for the rant. It just irritates me that people still call the Mark VIII's shocks "struts". I have never liked struts. I prefer upper and lower control arms because that type of suspension rides better, handles better, and offers more adjustment options than a strut design. The McPherson strut was originally designed as a cost-cutter for GM in the 1940's I think. GM didn't use it and Ford eventually adopted the design on some of their European cars in the late 1940's. As FWD became more popular, so did the strut. If you could eliminate the upper control arm and move the shock/spring away from the half-shaft, the front suspension of a FWD car could be made less complicated and use fewer parts. That's why struts are almost synonymous with FWD. 90% of the FWD cars on the road have struts in the front. And since I loathe FWD, I loathe struts almost as much. Again, sorry for the rant.
