Читать книгу 1969-1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429 - Dan Burrill - Страница 9
ОглавлениеTHE BOSS PROJECT AND VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION
The iconic Boss 429 Mustang has survived the test of time and is more popular and more valuable today than ever. With the value constantly climbing, these cars have become a good investment for collectors.
By the end of 1967, having performed very well on the racetracks of Europe, and winning the World Manufacturers’ Championship, Ford, under Henry Ford II’s direction, had achieved its goal of beating Ferrari. Therefore, Ford disbanded the European racing effort and shifted its attention to the home front, which meant NASCAR. The times were changing, as were the NASCAR rules.
Ford felt that it was time for some personnel changes, so Leo Beebe was promoted out and Jacque Passino was put in charge of Ford Performance. This was a good move because Passino was well known in the Holman-Moody camp, which had worked closely with Ford in the not-too-distant past.
Next came the big move. Henry Ford II convinced Semon “Bunkie” Knudsen of Chevrolet to come over and become president of the Ford Motor Company. Long before coming to Ford, Knudsen had established himself as a staunch advocate of high-performance cars, stating that racing was an essential part of marketing cars. As general manager of the Pontiac division, Knudsen, along with John DeLorean, Jim Wangers, and others, was behind the development and creation of the 1964 Pontiac GTO, which is considered the first muscle car. This precipitated the muscle car movement in the early 1960s. Knudsen was also a dyed-in-the-wool NASCAR fan, and is credited pushing the Boss 429 NASCAR engine forward. Knudsen’s favorite saying was, “Build what you race, and race what you build.”
From the beginning, this was a very special, almost secret project. Ford developed this fantastic new engine and it was going into the newly designed Mustang. The idea was for Kar-Kraft in Brighton, Michigan, to modify at least 500 new Ford Mustangs to physically accept the new Boss 429 engines, which turned out to be somewhat of a challenge. All of the cars were exactly the same, except for color.
VEHICLE AND ENGINE IDENTIFICATION
The Boss 429 was a homologation special, and held a special spot in Ford’s racing history. As such, properly identifying each car is of paramount importance and, in turn, registration and validation has become very important for protecting the investment. So where do you look for the numbers that tell you that this is a real Boss 429 Mustang? Start by opening the driver-side door and looking at the identification plate that is riveted to the door.
This door tag above the data plate identifies this car as a Boss 429, KK 1493. The Ford Motor Company data plate gives the following information for the serial number 9F02Z164779.
Each car that went to Kar-Kraft was assigned a NASCAR KK number that was placed above the VIN on the driver-side door. By the end of the program, Ford and Kar-Kraft had produced 1,358 Boss 429 Mustangs over the two-year period. KK 1201 was the first Boss 429 Mustang; KK 2558 was the final car to roll out the door.
This NASCAR tire pressure sticker is on the driver-side door just above the data plate.
KK 1215 was the first car offered to the public. This means that KK 1201 through KK 1214 were engineering cars and engine development cars. Several cars went to important people within the organization. Car number KK 1205 was an example of an in-house car, and it went to Bunkie Knudsen. Another car, KK 1217, was a special concept car that eventually became a crash car. Used to test safety and collect crash test data, it was driven into a barrier to see how it would hold up. The first 63 or 64 were high-priority cars that went to certain dealerships for sponsored racers. The invoice on KK 1279 shows that it went to Glen Organ Ford in Compton, California. At one time, Glen Organ was considered a high-performance and racing dealership; it sponsored Dan Gurney’s 1964 or 1965 Galaxie in NASCAR racing.
| 9 | 1969 |
| F | Built in Dearborn |
| 02 | Mustang 2-door SportsRoof |
| Z | 429-4V Boss V-8 Engine |
| 164779 | Serial number of this Ford scheduled for production at Dearborn |
| 63B | Mustang 2-door SportsRoof |
| C | Paint Code |
| DAA | Black Clarion Knit Vinyl Hi-Back Bucket Seats |
| 05C | Scheduled for build date |
| 892001 | Transportation Services Ordering District under Domestic Special Order 2001 |
| V | 3.91 Trac-Lok Rear axle |
| 6 | 4-speed close-ratio manual transmission |
Check the front driver’s side of the engine for “HP 429” in raised letters. This verifies that it is a genuine Boss 429 block. These engines have a special equipment package that includes four-bolt main bearings, a forged-steel crankshaft, and forged-steel connecting rods.
According to Ford Motor Company, it lost several thousand dollars on each car built, but that was the cost of running the Boss 429 race program. The purpose was to get the 500 engines into the cars and out to the public to meet the NASCAR homologation requirement.
This Boss 429 has an HP block, and you can see the HP mark on the front of the block verifying its authenticity. Some of the mid- and late-1970s engines had what was called a mirror image 460 block. It was exactly the same block with no difference in the material. When Ford built an engine, several casting core boxes were used. From the very beginning, Ford used one casting core box for the front, two side boxes, a rear, and one that went down in the valley chamber.
The serial number on this 429 block is located on the driver-side rear. The engine number and the serial number match, meaning that it’s a numbers-matching car.
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 bolt the wide semi-hemi engine right into the car, sell them out of the dealerships, and go racing. But the burgeoning youth market was not interested in the staid full-size Galaxie, LTDs, and similar cars.
Mustang created the pony car market, and car buyers were buying compact and intermediate cars with potent V-8s. Shinoda and Hernandez knew that, so they discussed the marketing and the success of the Mercury Comet program. At this point, Shinoda took over and suggested they do something a little bit different this time. “If we put this new very different engine in the Galaxie, no one is going to notice, except the stock car racing world, and our sales will likely stay the same.
The Boss project required the best people Ford could assemble to make it a success. This confidential organizational chart for the 429 NASCAR Mustang Program, printed on October 16, 1968, identifies the key players involved in the program.
KAR-KRAFT BUILDING
