With styling tweaked by newly arrived Ford designer Larry Shinoda, the
new-for-1969 Boss 302 sported front and rear spoilers, a blacked-out hood
treatment, and racy side stripes for a look that screamed performance.
Under the bodywork, the Boss 302 didn’t disappoint. Its engine combined
a four-bolt main Windsor small-block with reworked heads from the then-
new 351 Cleveland engine. A forged steel crankshaft, connecting rods and
pistons rounded out the reciprocating assembly. The result was a free-
breathing, high-revving powerplant making what Ford claimed was 290
gross horsepower – though actual output is estimated to be significantly
higher.
Ford engineers also thoroughly massaged the Mustang’s suspension in an
effort to meet then-boss Semon “Bunkie” Knudsen’s mandate to “build
absolutely the best-handling street car available on the American market.”
Stiffer springs and shocks, special sway-bar tuning, a stiffened chassis and
wide tires led to the fastest Mustang ever to lap the Ford test track up to that
point.
Ford gave the green light only once before: In 1968, management approved a special
Mustang – a car that sacrificed nothing in its quest to be the best all-around road-going
performance machine ever created by Ford Motor Company. That car became the 1969
Mustang Boss 302, and it remains one of the world’s most sought-after examples of
American performance.
Forty-two years later, Ford gave the green light again.
The team of Ford engineers, designers and stylists – all Mustang enthusiasts to the core –
that created the groundbreaking 2011 Mustang GT has distilled a new model to its purest
form, strengthening, lightening and refining each system to create a race car with a license
plate. Its name: the 2012 Mustang Boss 302
The entire story is here
credit media.ford.com
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
MENU