1969-1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429. Dan Burrill
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Название: 1969-1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429
Автор: Dan Burrill
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Автомобили и ПДД
isbn: 9781613254233
isbn:
The casting number is stamped on the center housing of the differential.
Anytime there are rare cars, there is always a chance that someone will create a clone and try to pass it off as an original. That has happened at least once with the Boss 429 Mustang. When buying or selling, you need to do thorough research on the car because buying a Boss 429 is an enormous investment. You need to check the VIN, all identification numbers, and look it up in the Boss 429 registry. Full documentation is available on all Boss Mustangs, including when they were built, when they were shipped, to whom they went, and practically everything about the car, including the mileage.
MARTI AUTO WORKS
Lois Eminger was a long-time employee of Ford Motor Company and a car person. When Ford was preparing to destroy batches of invoices, Lois recognized the value of these vehicle records and asked if she could keep them. These invoices included some of the most popular cars of the 1960s and 1970s. Kevin Marti had been acquainted with Lois Eminger for 20 years. After she retired, she eventually sold the invoices and records to Kevin Marti. He continues the time-honored tradition of making those records available to rightful car owners. Although Lois passed away some time ago, her vision helped many people keep important original documentation.
Marti is the privileged licensee (contract number 5012) to Ford Motor Company’s entire production database for the 1967–2007 model years. Marti can tell you everything about any Ford, Lincoln, or Mercury built in the United States or Canada during that period. What color was your car? Easy. What rear axle ratio? Sure. What day was the car sold? Yeah, even that, and a whole lot more. Unfortunately, data is not available for vehicles 1966 and earlier.
Ford used these original documents to bill the dealer. They contain the complete option list and, generally, the wholesale and retail costs of the base vehicle, all options, and shipping. These invoices also contain vehicle destination to the original dealer along with the trim code, date the invoice was prepared, and several other items.
According to Ford Motor Company, it lost $2,000–$4,000 on each car built. Ford personnel didn’t care about that because the purpose was to get 500 engines to the public as quickly as possible. Thus, Ford met NASCAR’s homologation requirements and the Blue Oval went back to what wins on Sunday, sells on Monday.
Looking at this, you can see that this car was scheduled for building on 1-31-69 (January 31, 1969), built on 1-31-1969, and released on February 19. The paperwork shows that it shipped on February 13, 1969. There’s full documentation on all cars regarding when they were built and when they were shipped, etc.
Another interesting item, if you look at the original invoicing for each car, is that Ford couldn’t release a car from the facility unless it was actually sold. So all those cars were sold to Shelby American, and then they were released to the Kar-Kraft factory or facility, in Brighton, Michigan, where the work started. When the cars were finished, they were invoiced to the individual dealers. This was Ford’s way of handling this particular program.
The Marti Report tells just about everything that the car owner would want to know about his or her car.
These two invoices tell a lot about the operation of Kar-Kraft. For example, there seem to be several different prices. Invoice no. 2 shows that the car (KK 1279) is going to a dealer, reflects the dealer prices, and the current price of items. Invoice no. 3 (KK 1279) obviously shows a wholesale price.
Please note that with the increasing value of these cars, many of these vehicles are now no longer just fun, vintage cars. Some are becoming part of automotive history. As such, the paperwork becomes an important part of that history. If you purchase any paperwork, please use adequate care to preserve it for posterity.
Most Boss 429s had a total list price of $5,022 and a sales amount of $4,066. In most cases, you could buy one of these cars for $3,600 or $3,700, depending on who you were and how badly you wanted the car.
There are several ways to verify a vehicle, especially a Ford. Marti Auto Works, a research firm, uses original Ford invoices, and can generate the paperwork and a complete report on the vehicle in question.
The Mercury Comets were well known on the drag strip but the full-size Mercury was meeting limited success on the NASCAR and USAC tracks. Ford was still promoting safety rather than performance.
At about the time that the baby boomers were getting their drivers’ licenses, Ford realized that it was missing out on one piece of the pie: the performance market. Chrysler, Dodge, and General Motors were raking in this new group of customers because they cared less about safety than they did performance. It didn’t take Ford long to change up its game plan and Lee Iacocca gets the credit for that.
For roughly the next 10 years, 1961 through 1971, Ford went all out with dedicated racecars and high-performance street cars, as well as with a wide range of racing parts and company sponsorship for top builders and racers, including Carroll Shelby. Ford even contracted with Shelby to produce the Mustang GT 350 and the GT 500. To help promote the cars, Hertz Car Rental had a number of Mustang GT 350s that anyone over the age of 25 could rent.
When Bunkie Knudsen went to Ford on February 6, 1968, he took Larry Shinoda, one of his top designers, with him. His mission was to improve the styling and sales of Ford’s model-year lineup, but his role extended far beyond that. He played an integral role in the product planning for the Boss 429. However, Shinoda’s first project at Ford was the Boss 302 Mustang and later the Boss 429, also known as the Boss-9. Shinoda had high regard for Knudsen and chose the name Boss in recognition, and also because Boss was popularly used to express cool and authoritative.
Another person who joined Bunkie Knudsen’s racing efforts at Ford was master mechanic and engine builder Smokey Yunick. Smokey was not an employee but rather an independent designer, engineer, and shop owner contracted by Ford. Yunick was a self-taught engineer and one of the most creative and innovative racing minds of the day. He designed, engineered, and built competition cars for IndyCar, Trans-Am, and NASCAR racing. In fact, Smokey Yunick’s cars won the Daytona 500 in 1961 with Marvin Panch and in 1962 with Fireball Roberts. When Knudsen enlisted the help of Smokey Yunick, he had an ace in the hole.
Ford developed and built the Boss 302 to homologate the car for Trans-Am road racing. Shinoda developed attention-grabbing graphics and body accents for the high-winding small-block. However, when it came to the Boss 429, Shinoda wanted a no-frills car and he styled it as an understated yet dedicated performance vehicle that was almost a sleeper.
Before the styling work began, Shinoda and the engineers met to discuss the Boss 429 project. Basically, they wanted to put this engine in the Galaxie because it had a large engine bay and would accept the huge engine easily. Moreover, it was for NASCAR, right? The Galaxie had been raced in NASCAR for years so it was the natural car for the engine. Ford could СКАЧАТЬ