-The original Boss 302 Mustang only produced in 69 and 70, a vintage ass kicker meant to answer chevys than bigger motors.
The world has moved on from caring much about chevy versus ford these days, but the Boss is back and relevant.
Let's drive a 2012 Boss 302 Mustang, the new one and check the tech.
The original Boss was largely an engine story with free-breathing heads bolted on to a top or block.
The new boss is similar, a better breathing engine that doesn't dramatically increase the power over a stock V8 as much as it changes
the character of it and that perhaps makes this the most interesting of the hot factory mustangs today.
Okay, now our spotters guide for a Boss 302.
If the C stripe and the big letters Boss 302 don't give a way, there are things you can look for.
First of all, up here, we've got these knocked out former fog lite position.
That's an old Boss 302 thing from back in the 60s.
You've got R body kit [unk] around this car, which really explains the different
front chin and air splitter on it.
You got a big hood ball on this car, which is hard to miss.
Of course, a different set of wheels.
Now, if you're not a big fan of this particular wheels, you've got other choices within the 19 size which these are is also a set of 20s from for, but I was noticing here the clearance, between this guy and that Rambo calipers about that much.
So, might be a little dicey getting after market that got the right clearance in all set.
You've always got a black or a white on a Boss and a couple of other differences are back here onto the butt, check it out.
Here's one of hairy, barely muffler and exhaust tips here.
They sound great.
But this is actually a quad exhaust car.
You might also spot a Boss by its attitude.
They lower at 11 mm in the front and a point less 1 mm in the rear, so it ends up with kind of stack posture.
Now, I got to tell you, Ford made a bouncy move on this car.
They have gone not just low tech, but they have near no tech.
Look at this, a 2012 ford without sync.
There's nothing.
Look at this, aux jack, that's it.
No USB.
Voice button, there isn't one.
There's something cool about that in this kind of vehicle.
I also like the very understated cabin.
They have gone with this kind of foe engine turn stuff, sort of black [unk], nice clean varnished aluminum style surrounds on the gauges.
The seats on this car, you see we have the Recaro seats.
You get special seats
no matter what you get on a Boss 302 sport seats.
These are guys are mixed of Alcantara, mouse fur, and cloth, and you find the same mouse fur on the steering wheel.
One gear shift only before we get to the engine bay.
Anything coming out of there is gonna go through a six speed with an incredibly tight and short through.
These gears laterally are so close to each other.
It's like a fingertip shift.
Now, of course, the Boss 302 comes from the fact that it is a 302.
That's 302 cubic inches, which is to say it's a 5 liter.
This is the classic ford displacement, but it's got nothing to do with the old 302s from when the lineage comes.
Here the motor, a very high intake stock as you can see, which creates the need for a hood bulge and where on a shell bay we see the supercharger tucked in there.
There's no such thing.
This is a naturally aspirated fuel injected V8 getting you 444 horsepower, 380 foot-pounds of torque
Gets this 3600-pound Mustang to 60 in about 4 seconds while delivering 1726 or probably about 19 real world.
Now, the way they got more power out of this guy was a variety of things including a different intake.
The port at the heads of the intake has very low turbulence, nice flow, all [unk] rotating parts in the lower end of this engine, and they have also gone through and tuned and tweaked a lot of other small things, more aggressive can as well, all that gives you 38 more horsepower than a GT with the V8, which is no slouch of a motor,
but note, this guy has a little lower torque number.
That's how they biased the performance curve and by the way the numbers I'm giving you are on supreme, a 91 octane gas.
You'll knock those down a few horses and a few foot-pounds the check stuff.
Of course, on the car like this, you got Monte Carlo bar here tieing your shock towers together and then underneath this rubber cap, here's what is that-- 5-position screw driver adjustable [unk] setting for the response rate of your shocks, front.
There's also a pair of them in the back.
Okay, so check this up.
Here's our main exhaust system here.
There're a couple of resonators behind the x-cross over, which out about there I think, yeah.
But then look at this guy, these are side pipes that come off right about at the crossover and they bleed off a little bit of exhaust and a lot of exhaust tone.
Ford says, it's mostly to bleed off some sound to get an interesting mix where most of the exhaust goes out to the rear exiting system.
This is kind of like truck day stuff.
By the way, Ford must know us because they didn't send our Boss with the so called track key, a special red key that unlocks the most aggressive calibrations for throttle, launch control, fuel delivery, and all kinds of timings.
Now, modern mustangs
have a lot of their bad habits tamed out [unk] these days [unk] here in low gear, bring it around, very nice.
Yeah, the power is always right there though it's not so picky as when you've got a blower on the engine.
That's something I like.
We're gonna take off the crutches [unk] gets out of the day, pretty cool, very possible car, [unk] and you can bring it back from edge [unk] readily.
I'm getting even little bit of [unk] on here and it's not
[unk] more around here.
See if I can [unk] fire hydrant [unk] so far so good, what a car.
Okay and through it all, you get that nice exhaust smoke, predictable linear power.
What is good handling for this kind of car of the [unk] pony car that's got a lot of good technology [unk] years.
Mostly what I love is this is a Mustang to really drive all up and where you're in a [unk] you're not [unk].
unless you're on a track or in a drag street.
This is too much there.
With THIS car, you can exercise a fair amount of what is got going, keep things on a boil, real fun, so not scare yourself too bad.
Okay, let's price the boss.
This guy is 4011 delivered, not a lot of stuff to play with on the tech options to be honest or really any options aside from a few minor things.
I'll call your attention to the following.
First of all, you've got a 1900.75 option for 20-inch wheels, either you like them or you don't.
I would wanna preserve the ride quality of this car actually and stick with 19, just my hunch.
The other that you look at is the Recaro package which is kind of an odd one.
It's got Torsen torque-sensing limited-slip end and the Recaro seats kind of a weird combination of features, but that's 2000 bucks as well.
