1969 Boss 302

 In the 60's we lived at Corona, Ca, which is about an hour away from Riverside Raceway.  My dad took me there for all the racing events; Can-Am, Trans-Am, Indy Car, NASCAR, even drag racing.  The trans-am racing was particularly memorable and imprinted on me the urge to have something like that to drive.  Naturally, since we had the 69 Mustang, my top pic was the Bud Moore Mustangs of 1969 and 1970.  Finally, in 2000, I brought home my 1969 Calypso Coral Boss.  I found the car on ebay and made the deal to include transport from it's current location at Brookings, Oregon.  The owner offered to fly me up there to see and drive it so I took him up on that - but that's a side story!


The Boss was in really good shape cosmetically, but the engine was tired and a few mechanical things needed restoring, so I was really in my element doing all the power train and suspension.  By the time I was done I had a car that ran better than it looked and it looked very well indeed.  David Newhardt, well-known car photographer, asked me to let him do a photo shoot for his upcoming book "Mustang Gallery"  The Boss appears there and in several other publications.  

I was not content with leaving the engine stock, oh no! After I had Larry Ofria and his crew at Valley Head Service do the porting work I built the engine to run a Bud Moore Mini-Plenum and Holley HP 750 carb set-up. I wanted to open-track the car at my local race track, Willow Springs, which was just 24 miles from my home in Palmdale.  I joined SAAC and took their drivers school.  Besides the club events at Willow Springs, I also drove the car at Fontana at the SAAC 30 event.  


At work in Palmdale I got talking with one of my co-workers about doing a parking lot show for all the company employees that had interesting cars and airplanes.  So we founded our "Wings and Wheels" show at Plant 10 of the Palmdale Airport, better known as AF Plant 42.  The show was a big success and I acted as judge for the awards at the first few years.  The show was taken over by one of the employee organizations and by 2007 when this photo was taken it took on a life of it's own. I was away more often that I was home by then and I was no longer able to organize the show.  But, again, one of my co-workers had a completely random idea that sucked me into my next project, a 1970 Boss 302.  Next time, stay tuned.  I promise I'll get up to date with all these ramblings but I've got to finish at least an overview of these times.

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