In 2007 one of my co-workers, Randy, told me that his neighbor across the street had to get rid of some of his cars that were stashed in the back of his property. Apparently a local realtor was trying to sell a neighboring house and didn't like the eyesore so he reported it to the county to force him to get rid of the "junked" cars. One of those cars was a 1970 Boss 302 in fairly complete condition. I went to have a look and this Boss was buried to the floorboards in the desert sand and burned to a crisp in the sun but quite complete, including the interior. The car was owned by a friend of Randy's neighbor who now lived in Arizona. I made the contact and we worked out a price.
We were able to extract the Boss from the sand and load it on a tow truck on its wheels. I made the mistake of putting it in my garage and over night hundreds of spiders came out and infested the garage. I'm not sure I ever got them all out. The engine, mostly complete including the carburetor, would turn over. I tried adding some water to the radiator and it immediately came pouring out the back of the engine. So I pulled the engine and found that during the years that it sat, and it gets down into the 10's and 20's in the winter, that some water that was left in the block had freeze-cracked the block at the rear, behind the flywheel. It was not going to be an easy repair so I searched for a replacement block and found a NOS 1971 service replacement block. I built up the new engine and plugged that in and got it running. And it ran pretty well.
It had original Hooker Super Comp headers, very nice pieces, I was sorely tempted to move those onto my 69 Boss. I got them ceramic coated by a guy living on the fringes of Kern county to keep from having to deal with the LA AQMD. He had a nice collection of racing go-carts. By the next April I had the "Desert Boss" ready to take to the Fabulous Fords Forever show at Knotts. I prevailed on my friend John to drive my 69 Boss and I drove the 70 and we made it down there no problem. As you can see in the picture it still looks like it was pulled from the sand. This was at the leading edge of the "survivor" interest so the car was a big hit at the show. That's Randy Ream, the keeper of the Boss 302 Registry and web site, there with me in front of the car. My Calypso Coral 69 Boss is to the left, behind me. I was also approached that day by Jim Smart, the Mustang Monthly magazine editor, and co-editor of the InSearchOf Mustangs database. Jim Smart and family, by the way, lived not far from me in Palmdale. I even ran into him one time at the dentist office. He wanted to do a feature on the "Desert Boss" but somehow we never arranged it.
In 2010 I advertized the car on the Boss 302 registry web site and sold it to member.
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