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Ford BOSS 429 Mustang (1970)
The rarest and most valuable of the '69 Sports Roof models was the Boss series. The Boss 429 was introduced first to allow the "semi-hemi" 429 cu. in. engine to be used by NASCAR. This meant 500 cars had to be sold to the public. To make room for the 375 hp monster, the cars were shipped to a special vendor (Kar Kraft of Michigan) where the suspension was lowered and moved forward along with the spring towers. Features included functional manual-controlled hood scoop, trunk mounted battery, close-ratio 4 speed transmission, fender decals and front spoiler. The engine was a reworked production 429 with four bolt mains, steel crank and rods, aluminium heads and intake, 735 cfm Holley carb and dual point ignition. Quarter mile time were surprisingly only low 14s at 103 mph. 859 Boss 429s left the showroom. I was never a great lover of the Mustang, but immediately bought a 429 from the local showroom. With a minimum amount of work, the car performed like the wind, and was successful in both drag racing and track events. I shipped the car back to Europe where we cleaned up in track racing events. I sold it to a man who promptly gave it as a present to his 17 years old son. Inevitably, he died when the car was destroyed while road racing in London.
The quality of the Boss was superb, and road handling faultless. It is not every car that one can cruise at 160 mph and listen to classical music! The engine as developed was a bit fragile and required rebuilding quite often during a racing season. The quarter mile was performed at 9.4 secs, which at the time was good enough to beat the competition. The car was in my opinion far better than the Aston Martin DBS and was a great deal more fun to drive too. The Shelby Mustang of the time was vastly inferior.
modifications to the car:
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