I thought that I was about done with an Article for Legendary Cougar magazine about the Boss 429, culminating with the two Boss 429 Cougars that were built at Kar Kraft when I ran across something new: there was third Boss 429 built BEFORE the two we have all heard about.
To cut the story short, I found documentation from within Ford and also an actual magazine test article documenting Boss Cougar number three. And it gets better, it was an Eliminator!
Here is the magazine article, located by Phil Parcells
I still have the mag the article is in, It was on the 70 cars and the 2 Boss9 Cougars were 69 Models converted to 1970 models after the 69 race season was over. If I remember there is no picture where you can say the Boss9 engine is in a Cougar.
Crushed most likely. It was a prototype. This one was actually built first. I also interviewed the photographer that shot the story originally for Car Craft.
The Car Craft archive is now owned by TEN and they are EXTREMELY difficult to deal with. We were just barely able to use what we did in the magazine. The photographer was an employee so the shots he took while on the job using Car Craft supplies, all belong to Car Craft. He could not help with more. The author of the article passed away a few years ago, which illustrates why it is so important to get their stories while their is still time.
It’s great to know that these cars existed. I’d love to see more pictures as most of us would. It’s just sad the everything like this comes down to “rights” of the owner or photographer. I understand the need to protect their work/photos from someone else profiting from them but for me the Cougar/car guy, I say…share…share and share some more while there is still people who have a passion and interest for these types of cars.
Steven
Weren’t the first two built as '69s then one of which the front end was switched and campaigned as a '70. The Dyno Don car stayed a '69 and the Fast Eddie Schartman was changed to a '70 I’m thinking
The second two were built as '69s. (The missing Boss 429 was actually built first). All three started out as '69s. By the time the cars were ready to race or be featured in the magazines the '70 was about to be released so Mercury asked the race teams to change out the nose sections to make them look like the current year cars. The Magazine car has low back bucket seats with out headrests, indicating that it was built as a standard Cougar in 1969 and then dressed out to look like a '70 Eliminator.
There were other capable shops, including the X garage at Ford. What Kar Kraft had was the ability to do a production run of 500 plus vehicles. The missing Boss 429 could have been done at Kar Kraft, but it was a strictly prototype effort. The original Boss 429 engine it was fitted with was said to be “unsuited to any useful purpose”. Kar Kraft was mentioned as a possible source for fitting the Holman Moody spec 429 but they also mentioned Nicholson/Yunick as a possibility.
