302 | Muscle Car Fan

Buying a 1970 Boss 302? The Wiring and Bodywork Are What Bite — Not the Engine

You find the ad at 11 p.m., and it looks like the one you’ve been chasing for years: a 1970 Boss 302 in Grabber Blue, numbers-matching, fresh paint gleaming under the seller’s shop lights. What you don’t see in the photos is the 55 years of history hiding under that paint — the fender that was cut and welded back on after a collision, the wiring harness some previous owner spliced into with electrical tape and hope, the seat belt hardware that Ford itself twice recalled. The engine bay might be immaculate and the car could still bite you somewhere you never thought to look. That’s the real lesson buried in one of the most-watched Boss 302 build videos on YouTube right now, and it’s worth understanding before you wire a deposit to anyone.

Camaro Z28 RS DZ302 1969

by Ross Mills

Chevrolet rated the 1969 Camaro Z/28’s DZ 302 at just 290 horsepower — a number dyno testing later proved wildly conservative, with real output closer to 400. Built from a hybrid 327/283 combination specifically to slide under SCCA Trans-Am’s 305-cubic-inch limit, the small-block powered Chevrolet to back-to-back championships against Ford’s Boss 302 Mustangs. Read on to find out how a rulebook loophole became one of the most respected engines Chevrolet ever built.

1968 red Ford Mustang GT 302 parked outdoors.

1968 Ford Mustang GT Fastback 302 2+2

by Wes

This Candy Apple Red 1968 Ford Mustang GT Fastback 2+2 carries an engine that had only been on sale for a few months when it left Dearborn, paired with a GT package that skipped a feature most people assume every GT got. V8TV’s Muscle Car of the Week caught up with it at The Brothers Collection, and the car makes a case that not every great Mustang needs a big-block name to matter. Watch to see what viewers are still arguing about in the comments.

A classic black muscle car parked on a driveway near a wooden fence.

Who Still Has Their First Muscle Car? 67 Camaro Bought When He Was 17

by Pat C

One of our readers walked into a Chevrolet showroom in 1967 while still in high school, paid cash, and drove home in a brand-new Camaro that never left his ownership. Fifty years later the car is still immaculate, wearing dual white racing stripes and a story most muscle car fans only dream about. Read on to find out what it actually takes to keep a first car for half a century.

Classic red Shelby Cobra with hood open at a car show.

0-60 The 12 Quickest Cars of The 60’s as Tested by Car & Driver

by Pat C

Car and Driver spent the 1960s testing everything from factory Corvettes to a road-going Ford GT40, all reduced to the same simple number: 0-60 mph. Two Shelby Cobras claimed the top two spots, one of them clocked at a scarcely believable 4.3 seconds, while a small-block Mustang GT snuck onto the list ahead of genuine big-block muscle. Read on to see how all twelve cars stacked up — and why the testing methods behind these numbers deserve an asterisk.

Classic blue muscle car parked outdoors on a sunny day.

This King Cobra was at the Top when it Came To the Mustang II

by Wes

Ford gave the Mustang II one final send-off in 1978, borrowing styling straight from its biggest rival to create the rarest trim of the whole generation. The King Cobra combined Trans Am-inspired graphics with a genuine 302 V8, a factory air dam unique to the model, and a fully-equipped price that pushed past $6,000. Read on to find out how one six-Mustang-II collector still had to go hunting for the one trim missing from his garage.

Close-up of a classic gray Chevrolet Camaro SS with black rims.

Z/28 Beautiful Front!

by Kiril

Chevrolet rated the 1969 Camaro Z/28 at 290 horsepower, a figure that racers who put one on a dyno treated as an inside joke. The car existed to satisfy a racing rulebook rather than a sales brochure, and its 302-cubic-inch V8 was engineered backward from a displacement cap. That understatement explains more about Chevrolet’s ambitions than the sheet metal does. Read on for what was really under the hood.

Posts Tagged: 302