Safety Car - Mustang Boss

The Boss 302 was Ford's best effort yet at SCCA racing. It had to be. While the Mustang was the original PonyCar, Ford received a challenger in the SCCA Trans-Am with the introduction of the Z28 Camaro. For 1970, Ford continued to up the ante with evolved aerodynamics and improved engine design.

The factory BOSS 302 Trans-Am Mustangs started life as regular Mustang Sportsroofs, since the BOSS 302 Trans-Am development started many months before the street BOSS 302 Mustangs were into production. It was also cheaper for FORD to use fastbacks with just the basics, because the cars were stripped down and rebuilt anyway. So the race cars were not built up from production BOSSes for two reasons; time and money, critical to any racing program.

In 1969, the basic construction of the Trans-Am cars was done by Kar Kraft in Dearborn, MI. FORD’s high performance and racing division. Two teams raced the cars that year. The Shelby Racing Company and Bud Moore Engineering. The first two cars built by Kar Kraft were prototypes with one going to each team for development and testing. An additional car was also built and delivered to Smokey Yunick, but it never saw any action in the Trans-Am series.

In all of the Trans-Am BOSSes, Kar Kraft installed roll cages and a heavy duty and highly modified suspension which included traction bars, extra heavy springs and sway bars, racing brakes and all the moving parts were attached with heim joints instead of rubber bushings. The cars also received fuel cells, full race BOSS 302 engines with 460 H.P., aluminum radiators and a lightweight and durable stainless steel exhaust system.