Читать книгу 1969-1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429 - Dan Burrill - Страница 8

INTRODUCTION

The 1970 Boss 429 Mustang featured new body styling. The front end had only two headlights and the front fenders had decorative air vents, whereas the older 1969 body style featured two additional headlights. Today, the 1969 cars are considered to be the more desirable of the two.

The seeds for creation of the Boss 429 were planted in 1964. That year, Chrysler brought the 426 Hemi to Daytona where it cleaned up in Daytona 500 qualifiers and the race. Ford realized that the race version of the FE 427, with its cam-in-block and pushrod setup, could not surpass Mopar’s elephant engine. The Blue Oval’s solution to the problem was to install the 427 SOHC (single overhead cam engine), otherwise known as the Cammer 427, in Ford and Mercury stock cars. In January 1964, Ford requested NASCAR’s approval to use the Cammer engine for competition, but Bill France turned them down.

Ford needed its own version of the Hemi. After NASCAR effectively rejected the Cammer, Ford began the design and development of the engine that became known as the Boss 429. After the long, anguishing saga of trying to homologate the FE 427 Cammer for NASCAR racing, Henry Ford II and Ford racing personnel were determined to build an engine that would fit into the NASCAR rulebooks. The goal was to beat the Hemi and all other big-block challengers in NASCAR competition, as well as at quarter-mile drag strips across the country. From the beginning, the Boss 429 was a limited-build race homologation street car, built to conform to NASCAR rules. It became one of the most valuable and rare Mustangs ever built.

Ford already had the very successful FE Series 427, followed by the 428 and 428 Cobra Jet, so why the Boss 429? It boiled down to Bill France Sr., the owner and general manager of NASCAR. He owned the tracks and he made the rules. Smokey Yunick once referred to him as a dictator and stated that he “made up the rules as he went along.” Keep in mind that in the 1960s, success in NASCAR was an important part of the racing program. The automobile manufacturers desperately wanted their cars on the tracks, exposed to the media and the public, especially the Daytona 500. This was the first race of the season and considered the crown jewel of NASCAR; Ford wanted to win it badly. The expression, “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” was the mantra in the corporate boardrooms.

Bill France was doing everything he could to fill the grandstands and, at the same time, pacify the major car manufacturers so they would race at his speedways and tracks. The rules were changing constantly, then as now. Of course, fudging and rule bending occurred; not all car manufacturers were totally satisfied, and rightly so. Moreover, when the manufacturers weren’t happy, they boycotted the races.

By 1964, Chrysler had 30 years of experience; 5 were at Daytona and they were making the most of it. At this time, the Chrysler Hemi-equipped cars were the ones to beat, and Ford really didn’t have a competitive powerplant in the lineup. This latest and fastest version of the Chrysler Hemi was introduced in Plymouth and Dodge stock cars just before the 1964 Daytona 500. Chrysler fitted its 426-ci big-block with well-designed, well-engineered hemispherical heads. Because this engine was not yet available in production cars, (technically, at least) it shouldn’t have met any NASCAR rule. However, according to Bill France, because the engine (or its parts, that is, heads) were available over the parts counter, the engine could run in the event. The people at Ford cried foul, to no avail. This new Chrysler engine was unveiled at the last minute. It produced far more horsepower than Ford’s 427-ci engine with the conventional wedge heads.

It wasn’t long before the crew in the Ford and Mercury camp realized that during practice sessions, the Plymouth and Dodge cars were running at least 5 mph faster than their best times. Once again, Ford met with Bill France, voicing a valid complaint that, unfortunately, fell on deaf ears. The entire race became a Mopar show with the Hemi 426–powered cars finishing 1, 2, 3, and 4. Needless to say, Ford felt robbed by a rule change.

Ford, after all, had been focusing on European racing for the past few years. Now it was back home and wanted to offer up some winning Fords on the NASCAR circuits. At first, Ford offered a high-rev kit for the 427-ci engines, hoping to be competitive with the Chrysler Hemi. That didn’t prove successful, so Ford went off the track and used political pressure to even the playing field.

At about that time in 1965, Chrysler produced the street Hemi, which was banned because of the incredible speeds it produced. This stock Hemi 426 was referred to as the elephant engine because it turned out 600-hp on the Dyno in the stock configuration, and even more in the race-ready form. Finally, Bill France stepped in and said, “Enough.” Mopar responded by boycotting half the 1965 season; Ford boycotted part of the season the following year. Chrysler was allowed back in 1966 and won most of the races.

NASCAR leadership and France, in particular, were philosophically opposed to the 427 Cammer. His goal was to rid the sport of special racing engines because they created “non-stock cars.” Ford was not quick to take no for an answer from NASCAR, and many at Ford thought that their company was being treated unfairly. The Cammer engine was the only big-block in Ford’s arsenal capable of competing with the Hemi. It had a complex top end and timing chain setup, but it was essentially a reworked FE 427 2-valve hemi head.

Ford did not give up easily and tried to have the engine approved for the 1966 season. After several years of concerted efforts, NASCAR approved it for competition, but assessed such a severe carburetion restriction and huge weight penalty that the engine was rendered uncompetitive. Ford gave up trying to race the Cammer in NASCAR, but the engine dominated many experimental and factory classes in NHRA drag racing.

By 1967, the handwriting was on the wall. If Ford was going to be competitive and win on the tracks, especially Daytona, it needed a new engine design. Moreover, all of the players needed to agree on the rules. After several heated meetings, almost everyone agreed on the rules, the first of which was no engine size larger than 7 liters (430 ci).

Fran Hernandez, developer and manager of the Mercury Comet racing program, became the production manager for the Boss 429 program. (Photo Courtesy Fran Hernandez Collection)

Over the years, a large and loyal fan base developed a tremendous interest because of its unique race history and rarity. The Boss 429 was only produced during a two-year period and in limited numbers. They are considered highly collectible today and the value of the remaining cars has consistently gone up yearly. As a street machine, they were difficult to tune and expensive to maintain. It was not unheard of for a new owner to pull out the exotic Boss engine and replace it with a 427 or 428 that was more suited to run on the street. Today, collectors are trying to match the available Boss 429 engines with the cars in which they were originally fitted at the Kar-Kraft facility some 46 years ago.

This strong and growing interest from collectors has produced impressive auction prices. Several of the cars have sold at the Barrett-Jackson auction in the last few years, bringing as much as $575,000. Some have been restored to an extremely high level and many have been modified for racing. I will explain how to identify and verify that a Boss 429 is the real thing and not a copy.

The Boss 429 engine has been used for a number of high-performance applications from NASCAR to drag racing to road tracks. It was a marketing stroke of genius to put this huge newly designed engine into an already exciting muscle car. The public took notice and bought the Boss 429 cars. They also bought other Mustang models; 1969 and 1970 were banner sales years.

FRAN HERNANDEZ AND FORD TOTAL PERFORMANCE

Francisco “Fran” A. Hernandez was one of the unsung heroes of this era. Born in 1922, Fran served a stint in the Navy during the World War II. When the war was over, he returned to Southern California, where he turned his passion for hot rodding into a full-time career. He became a machine shop owner with Fred Offenhauser and a foreman for Edelbrock Equipment. Fran was one of the first to use nitromethane in 4-cylinder engines. He was racing and winning with a 1932 Ford Coupe. He also worked for Bill Stroppe, who was building race cars, and Peter DePaolo, an Indy 500 racer. Fran became involved with Ford Motor Company racing through this connection.

He later got a job with the Electric Auto-Lite Company (later known as Autolite), which Ford eventually purchased. It didn’t take his new company long to recognize his real talent. In 1960, Fran became known as the Man from Mercury after creating a performance-racing program for Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury division. At this time, Mercury was involved in NASCAR racing, but it wasn’t doing well, and in 1965, it stopped backing full-size stock cars.

“The full-size Mercury is too big for success in that kind of racing. It’s like driving a school bus,” said Fran. “There’s no sense in going racing if you can’t win. You’re just wasting money. To race the Comet, under present rules, we’d have to have a 405-ci engine, and we don’t build one.” Therefore, it went drag racing with the Comet. Ford later sponsored the Comet Cyclone Funny Cars driven by Ed Schartman and Ron Leslie.

In 1964, as head of the Performance and Evaluation Department, Hernandez promoted the Mercury Comet by creating a 100,000-mile endurance run. The follow-up was the development of the Comet Cyclone GT for drag racing. Looking for more promotional opportunities, Hernandez built five 1964 Comets for the East African Safari race, which covered 3,000 miles of rough roads. This was a first for any American automaker and the publicity was tremendous. Fewer than 15 percent of the vehicles entered finished the race. “One of the Comets finished in 21st place,” said Hernandez. “Not bad for a first try.” He followed this event with another endurance run from Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America to Fairbanks, Alaska.

When it came to promoting the Mercury competition cars, Fran Hernandez was a visionary. He was a smart engineer and a top car builder, but he also knew where the future was when it came to marketing and car sales.

“In just a short time, half the population of the country will be 25 and under. The drag strip is the best place to show them the potential of our vehicle and our engine,” he said, “We’re not thinking so much of sales today and tomorrow, as sales in the future.” This was 1966.

“He was a great engineer,” said mechanic Bud Moore, whose South Carolina team, Bud Moore Engineering, built NASCAR racecars. “He understood what the drivers wanted. He was a real big help to us because he knew what needed to be done. It was a great honor to have him working with us.”