Muscle Cars Blog

Is this an engine or a car? Or both? It’s a little like the question about the “chicken or the egg”. So before we get into the awesome 1970 boss mustang – we need to first get a little history lesson.

Grabber Blue

In 1968 – Bunkie Knudsen came over for GM to Ford and at this time the main focus was two fold :

1. for NASCAR racing to get the 429 ci “blue crescent” engines certified, for this you had to have 500 sold in production. At this time it didn’t mater what the engine was sold in it just had to be an in a one of the manufactures cars or in the case of the Boss in several and none of these where even the one it raced in.  Truly this was the case in NASCAR at the time the Torino was king and was given a 429 power plant and the Boss legend started;
2. to design and build a Camaro Z28 beater. This was done with the Boss Mustang originally in 1969. These also competed in the Trans Am Circuit.

So what was the Boss 302, it was the engine the great ford Windsor bottom end with a set of Cleveland top end machined to fit to the waterways within the engine – but with the studs that bolt it up being the same no major engineering work was required. The one thing that was custom or very special was the inlet manifold, for it need to be slightly wider to cater for the different shape of the heads (whilst it is commonly know that the Cleveland heads are bigger, you would therefore expect a smaller inlet manifold this is not the case and the manifold is actually slightly wider. Ford had a special boss manifold cast for the job, it was aluminum and a great addition.

So back to the main question with this in mind its fair to say the engine came first – it was only when they looked at naming sports car that option to call it a Boss and not SR2 that it really took and a legend was born.

In 1969 the 302 boss engine was offered which was the first time the “Boss” had been put into the Mustang and whilst limited in numbers only 1628 small block 302s and 857 large blocks were made – a legend was truly born.

In 1970 the boss was given new colors and a stripe kit make over, it just looks awesome and with the Grabber color range these where hot items. This time, a massive 7013 1970 Boss Mustang units were sold and another 499 of the big block units this was an incredible outcome given the overall mustang numbers where in decline.

Options for the 1970 Boss Mustang included, Grabber paint choices (blue/Green and Orange), the legendary functional Shaker, taco 8000 rpm, re- enforced engine bay, off-set rear shockers, 4 speed manual gear box (close ratio), Detroit locker 9” differential and 3 wheel choices, Good Year F60 tires plus more.

The Boss did last into 1971 but was really scaled back 1806 units and no longer possessed the traditional boss engine and no big blocks where made that year, this was the end of the era. But luckily not the end of the legend, much like the 1965 Shelby the legend still live on.

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