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A Grabber Blue 1970 Boss 302 Mustang, sold in 1975 to pay for college and tracked by its original owner for thirty-six years before he bought it back — that’s the story behind this Legendary Motorcar restoration. Under the hood is one of Ford’s most serious race-bred engines, complete with dry-deck heads, no head gaskets, and a high-riser aluminum manifold built to beat Camaros on a road course. Watch to see how close the shop gets it back to 1975.
Ford needed thousands of these built just to make Trans-Am racing legal, and that homologation math produced one of the sharpest-handling Mustangs of the muscle car era. Powered by a high-revving 290-horsepower 302 small-block instead of a big-block brawler, the Boss 302 was built to beat Chevrolet’s Camaro Z28 on road courses, not just stoplights. It worked: Ford took the 1970 Trans-Am Manufacturer’s Championship.
The Ford Mustang Boss 429, a real heavyweight of its time, was Ford’s bold attempt to challenge the Chrysler 426 Hemi on the NASCAR tracks. With an engine so big, it needed a trunk relocation for the battery—because who needs trunk space anyway? Kar Kraft had to re-engineer the Mustang just to fit this beast under the hood. The result? A 375 hp engine that laughs at its own rating, easily roaring past 600 hp with tweaks. The Boss 429 is a muscle car icon, proving that size does matter!
Get ready to rev up your engines with the 2013-2014 Mustang GT lineup, where speed meets style! The Shelby GT500 roars with a 5.8L Trinity V8, hitting 662 hp and a breezy 202 mph. Not a fan of shifting gears? No problem! Whether cruising in the Boss 302 or the GT, you’ll enjoy upgraded brakes, stability control, and even ambient lighting for those moody night drives. And don’t forget the essential USB plug for your road trip playlists. Buckle up; it’s going to be a wild ride!
Two guys running a small restoration shop in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho spent years hunting down original parts for a Mustang most people would have finished with reproductions. The payoff: a numbers-matching 1970 Mach 1 in Grabber Orange with a 428 Cobra Jet under its shaker hood, sold for ninety-nine thousand dollars at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale. Owner Jack Scanlon has had the car since 2010. What convinced two restorers a thousand miles from the usual parts networks that this build was worth doing right?
Ford expected the new Mustang to sell 100,000 units in its first year — buyers blew past that mark in under three months. This gallery traces the first-generation Mustang from its record-breaking 1964 debut through the Boss 302 era, with a surprising twist: the launch year wasn’t even the Mustang’s best-selling one. See which model year actually topped the charts.
The Ford Mustang’s fifth generation, launched in 2005, rides the nostalgia wave with a nod to the fastbacks of the ’60s. Sporting a mix of retro flair and modern muscle, it features a Macpherson-strut suspension, and a lineup of engines that could make a cheetah jealous. From a humble V6 to a roaring V8, it packs a punch stronger than your morning coffee. With options like a 1000-watt stereo and a Shelby GT500 that could double as a rocket, this Mustang ensures you’re never late for brunch.
Ford built this Boss 302 Mustang to satisfy SCCA Trans-Am homologation rules, which required at least 6,500 production copies before the race car could compete. Ford ended up building 7,014 for 1970, exceeding the quota by 514 cars, each carrying a fortified 302-cubic-inch V8 making 290 horsepower and a suspension tuned for road-course duty. Period road tests clocked the quarter mile in 14.9 seconds at 93.4 mph. Ford dropped the model after just two years on the market.
Ford has spent six decades building genuinely different kinds of muscle cars, from the original 1964 Mustang that sold 400,000 units in its first year to Shelby’s race-bred GT350 and GT500, all the way to the homologation-only Boss 302 and Boss 429. Take the quiz and the real question isn’t which car is fastest – it’s which era of Ford’s muscle car identity actually matches how you’d drive. Here’s the history behind every option on the list.
This countdown of Ford’s greatest engines set off a wave of comments nominating everything from the bulletproof 300 straight-six to the underrated 351 Cleveland as glaring omissions. See which seven engines made the official cut, and judge for yourself whether the list holds up against a century of Ford engineering.
This compilation strings together real quarter mile drag races between the modern muscle car era’s biggest names — Hellcats, Camaro ZL1s, a Shelby GT500 Super Snake, a Corvette ZR1, and more — with results that do not always match what the spec sheets promise. One Hellcat driver appears to fall asleep at the line and still nearly catches a Super Snake by the finish. Watch to see which factory-built legend actually comes out on top.
Ford didn’t build the Boss 302 to look good in a parking lot — it built it to beat the Camaro Z/28 on Trans-Am race weekends, then had to sell a street version to make it legal. Here’s the racing rulebook that created one of the most collectible small-block Mustangs Ford ever made, and why so few survive today.
Ford built the 1970 Boss 302 Mustang strictly to satisfy Trans-Am homologation rules, hiring designer Larry Shinoda to give it a front spoiler, rear wing, and matte black hood unlike anything else in the Ford lineup that year. Production jumped to 7,014 units — over four times the 1969 total — powered by a 302 cubic inch V8 making 290 horsepower through big-port heads borrowed from the upcoming 351 Cleveland. New hockey-stick stripes and inboard headlights set the 1970 model apart at a glance. Numbers-matching survivors like this grabber-hood example remain some of the most sought-after Mustangs of the era.
The 1969 Mercury Cougar lineup hid more variety under its hood than the brochure let on, ranging from a Windsor small block bored out from Ford’s 302 all the way up to a 335-horsepower Cobra Jet big block. Mercury even added a mid-year surprise, slotting the Boss 302 into a new Eliminator package months after the model year began. It turned a plush pony car into one of Ford’s more overlooked performance bargains.