1969 Boss 429 Up For Auction

[VoodooBoss]

And it was recently restored. I wonder if this will hit a half million? It looks nice.

http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1089086_is-a-1969-ford-mustang-boss-429-worth-480k-to-you

 

[Senderofan]

I'm sure the current owner is counting on it. I'm sure it took serious money to do a complete resto. I try and watch some of the auctions when they broadcast on cable....I haven't seen a 429 near that mark. Perhaps they are about to rise up to the level of the Shelby Cobra's....time will tell.

 

[jneary]

The Boss 429 is a true beast if a machine. There are times when I think the 2012/13 cars should be illegal for the street but these cars were dangerous on the street back in the day especially with the tires that shipped with them!

Shocking that they are now 5-7 times the price of a 302 car. Those performance numbers were impressive right up to the point that the Mod cars started to get serious about horsepower. Now, its amazing what even the base 6 cyl cars can do in comparison. Boy, if you could show people back in 1970 the specsheet of the 2013 lineup, they would freak out! Hmmm, wonder what it will be like in 2056?!

 

[PP0001]

I'm sure the current owner is counting on it. I'm sure it took serious money to do a complete resto. I try and watch some of the auctions when they broadcast on cable....I haven't seen a 429 near that mark. Perhaps they are about to rise up to the level of the Shelby Cobra's....time will tell.

I recall a couple of Boss 9 cars selling for some big money in 2013 and suggest this seller will ride the coat tails of other high priced Boss 9 cars that have sold this year.

At Mecum at Kissimmee one of these cars went for $417,000 and at Mecum Monterey earlier this year a Boss 9 went for $550,000.

Add to that an approximate buyers fee of 8% that would put the Monterey car at just below $600,000.

Granted these were both low mileage original cars and not restored such as this one but his asking price may not be out of range.

 

[Senderofan]

I recall a couple of Boss 9 cars selling for some big money in 2013 and suggest this seller will ride the coat tails of other high priced Boss 9 cars that have sold this year.

At Mecum at Kissimmee one of these cars went for $417,000 and at Mecum Monterey earlier this year a Boss 9 went for $550,000.

Add to that an approximate buyers fee of 8% that would put the Monterey car at just below $600,000.

Granted these were both low mileage original cars and not restored such as this one but his asking price may not be out of range.

Yes.....I would think an original, low miles 429 would command the very top dollar. It will be interesting to see what these high level resto's command going forward. Perhaps this is a sign that the market has begun to firm up some.

 

[302BOB]

Talk about rare cars...Does anybody recall the 1964 Ford Thunderbolt....only 100 made...True race car from the factory.

 

[coboss]

I'm sure the guy I knew in high school in the late-70's who had a real live Boss 429 in nice condition(although it had a 460 in it at that point) is kicking himself. Everyone was aghast that he had paid $3000 for it! My 1970 Mach I with a 428SCJ would kill it, and I only paid $1000 for that.

Yes, I know what a good '70 Mach I with a 428SCJ goes for now, and yes I feel about as bad as I'm sure the guy with the Boss 429 feels.

If only I had a time machine in 1976 and could have gone forward to now to see what some of these cars sell for!

Just out of my high school parking lot I would have taken the Boss 429, the Boss 302, my '70 Mach I, several 396 and one 454 Chevelle, a '73 455SD Trans Am, several 340/440 'Cudas, Challengers, Chargers and Road Runners, 396 Camaros, and on and on. At that time, $1000 would get you a bona fide killer muscle car, $3000 would get one in pristine condition.

Crazy.

 

[dabossinnne]

Boy, that brings back memories! Had a '69 Boss 9... KK1318, Whimbleon White, 820S numbers-matching motor... back in college. Bought it in '79 for $4,500. My dad went halfsies on it with me as a HS grad gift. Bought it in Omaha from a cousin of a friend. Car was originally from Milwaukee, sold thru Northwestern Ford and it was all stock original/unrestored/great condition save for aftermarket wheels when I bought it. Dumb as I was back then, I did take care of it, stored it in winter, didn't abuse it... well, not too much anyway. Sold it right before I got married, graduated college, and went in the Navy for $9,500, so I thought at the time I did pretty well. AFAIK the car is currently up in Mitchell, SD in the Telstar collection. And, yes, I still "kick" myself for selling it, but hindsight's 20/20 and I had my reasons at the time. Oh well...

FWIW, Boss 9s are not easy cars to own, or at least they weren't back then... Very very finicky, drivability sucked on the street... they were exotic (for the time) race motors detuned for the street. Giant valves and low velocity ports, under cammed and carb'ed stock, with restrictive exhaust. Terrible stock valve train geometry combined w/ hyd stock cam and heavy valves meant risking broken valves or valve springs at high RPM, and that short stroke 429 would spin like crazy, especially with the 4:30 rear end it had. Stock oiling with the heavy 1/2" cap screw rod bolt "S" rods was a weak point... spun rod bearings were common. Swapping in MOPAR Hemi rods and bearings and installing an upper engine oil restrictor kit were desirable mods. And those O-rings (in lieu of head gaskets)... don't get me started. There weren't many aftermarket parts available for those motors back then, so mostly Ford and Holman & Moody NOS race and/or custom-made parts and the like, and everything was (and still is) uber expensive.

Fun car, though... in a straight line. And looking out over that giant hood scoop while listening to the mech cam (swapped in a custom grind mech cam for the stock hyd unit), thundering exhaust note and top loader gear whine was intoxicating.

 

[coboss]

"Fun car, though... in a straight line. And looking out over that giant hood scoop while listening to the mech cam (swapped in a custom grind mech cam for the stock hyd unit), thundering exhaust note and top loader gear whine was intoxicating."

That is exactly how I felt about my 428SCJ Mach I. It had the shaker scoop, beefed up close ratio top loader, solid lifters, Holley/Edlebrock/Hooker, all the usual stuff you did to cars back then. It had the 4.30 Detroit Locker, and the guy who sold it to me threw in a set of slicks for it. I used to bolt them on and go over to the deserted country lane a few miles from where I stored it and do burnouts. It could spin the slicks all the way into third gear, and when you dropped the clutch, you'd better be ready for the 1-2 shift because you only had about 1 second.

There are certain aspects of the original muscle cars that were unique experiences that you'll never have with a modern Boss. Those cars had almost no sound deadening, no vibration damping, and they smelled like gas and oil. They handled like crap, and, while the brakes on my Mach I were great, that was the exception because I knew a lot of people with high-horsepower muscle cars that had drum brakes on all four wheels, and you needed a LOT of room to stop them. The batteries and starters were not as good then, and we all ran 20W-50 dino oil, so cranking over the high compression big blocks was tough, especially if it was a little cold. Many people would swap on a Holley carb or two or three with a manual choke, and having to dump a little gas into the carb(s) to get the car started was common.


I laugh when people complain about their new Mustang's lack of heated seats, "poor" stereo, very slight gear whine, and so on. They wouldn't last five minutes in a vintage muscle car.

I had a friend with a '70 Challenger, 340 pistol grip 4-speed he bought for $600. It was the weirdest order we ever saw. Someone had custom ordered it with the 340-4-speed, and the shaker hood option, and that was it. Stock gears without limited slip, 4-wheel drum brakes, manual steering, no radio, no A/C (of course), vinyl seats, hubcaps, the whole shebang, but it had the shaker hood setup, which now, by itself, goes for about $5000 used. I see that Chrysler has brought it back: http://www.dodge.com/en/2014/challenger-shaker/?sid=1037056&KWNM=Challenger+Shaker