It's hard to believe that this is the first time Jay Leno has welcomed one of the most iconic muscle cars of the 1960s to his Burbank, California, garage, but the time has come to fawn over Ford Motor Company's [NYSE:F] Mustang Boss 429.
This week's visitor is a freshly-restored 1969 Boss 429 recently completed by Marcus Anghel's Anghel Restorations in Scottsdale, Arizona, one of the epicenters of the muscle car world. In the video, Jay learns all about the flashy 'Stang's restoration and the history of this iconic muscle car.
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Offered for just two model years, the Boss-9, as enthusiasts call it, came about in response to NASCAR homologation rules that said at least 500 examples of a race car must be sold in street form so they could be considered "stock cars." The big engine had to be shoehorned under the hood of the Mustang. Today, of course, the "stock car" portion of NASCAR really means nothing.
Boss 429s were developed in response to Chrysler's 426 Hemi, and they put out more than 500 horsepower despite being officially rated at just 375 ponies. Back then, of course, self-reporting by automakers was a much looser affair than it is today (although the EPA might not agree). The cars were kind of sleepers, differing only from a base model in their details.
Today, a restored Boss 429 is worth up to half a million dollars.
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