1969/70 Prototype Mustang

ssmustang

ssmustang

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OK guys will start this off at the beginning, will try to stay on subject. Let me know if I veer off too far.

I was bracket racing a 1966 Mustang coupe and was thinking of moving up to Stock or Super Stock, was always a Ford guy and Mustangs were my favorite. I bought a 70 Boss 302 in 1974 with thoughts of turning it into a stocker but after watching National Dragster, magazines and any other information at the time it didn't seem like they were doing well. Of course, you couldn't ignore what the Cobra Jets were doing, so my plans changed. I had seen 2 CJ Mustangs running at Southwinds, a red 1969 running a high compression lightweight valve motor in SS/G and a blue 70 called 'Power Horse' running a Holbrook low compression heavy valve motor in SS/H. Both cars were out of Minot ND. I talked with the owners and found out the 70 was for sale. I 'negotiated' with Bruce for a time but before I made a deal it had sold (went back on the street in Minot). I was bummed but got a call from Bruce not long after with the news Larry (the owner of the 69) had lost interest in the Mustang and it was now for sale (he was good friends with the Beauchemins and ran a BB/A after). Good news was Bruce kept his drivetrain (Holbrook motor) and had put it in the car and was running it. Made a deal quickly for the 69 body and the heavy valve Holbrook motor. The deal came with a few complete 9" N pumpkins with various gear sets, extra set of wheels and tires and other spare parts. Another important part of the deal was Larry would deliver the car to Canada. After talking with the Portal border people and getting what I needed in place to cross with the car, I flew to Minot the day after Christmas and we crossed the border Dec. 27th.

tom olsen photo 1973 (1).jpg


I'm not sure when I was told more details about this Mustang as I made the deal quickly after losing the 70, but some of the highlights I remember was there was a $1 bill of sale from Ford Motor Company and the car had Chrysler Super Stock springs which was kind of odd at the time. The picture below is how the Mustang looked when I bought it, running against I think his name was Tom Edwards in the Wheeler Dealer car.

Mustang 17.jpg

Will leave it here, finger tired now. Promise to get into the 'good stuff' next.
 
Of course just after posting I remembered his name was Jim Edwards, great guy, lots of fun which was what running in Stock/Super Stock was at that time. Everyone was pretty competitive, were happy to be there, Les paid some tow money for the Alberta guys and a few rounds back so usually went home with a check. Saskatoon was called 'super stock city' for awhile as between stock and super stock we could field an 8 or more stock/super stock class locally.

My plan to buy a turn key car was a better idea than building from scratch but I didn't factor in how fast the classes were changing. The Mustang was running 13x30 tire (which were ALL that could get in there), stock 31 spline axles, detroit locker and still was a solid cam motor. Gary Lindberg showed up with the record holder SS/DA Mr. Woods Belvedere, ZK soon after bought 'Lil Stinker' also a record holder car so needless to say time to upgrade. At the time if you were running a competitive FE Ford, Carl Holbrook was a go to guy. Since I bought the Holbrook motor, Bruce set up a call for me to Carl. After the season was over I headed to Detroit with the motor looking to update. Carl being a good salesman talked me into a complete new roller cam, sheet metal intake state off the art super stock 428. I had found out that through Bruce, Carl had gotten Larry together with a guy named Tony Rainero who owned the 69 Larry ended up buying. Carl arranged for me to meet Tony who lived in Detroit. My buddy Greg and I found our way to his house and we sat around his kitchen table until late in the night or early the next morning with Tony telling us of what he knew of the Mustang. Upon returning to our hotel room i remember frantically finding some paper and writing down all I could remember. Tony started off with 'the car was a prototype used in the development of the Boss 302'.
 
I remember hearing pieces of this story "way back".
Bob, thankyou very much for putting the whole story in front of us!
Waiting for more,,,,,
Fred
 
OK, carrying on with some information on Tony who without there would have been no 69/70 Mustang.

Tony worked for Ford as a Gas Turbine Specialist, which some on here may know what that is but I will try to put a link in here but if that doesn't work, google 'Big Red Turbine truck' for additional information.

www.thedrive.com

We Found Ford's Incredible Turbine-Powered Semi-Truck 'Big Red' That's Been Lost for Decades

The 40-year search for an unbelievable piece of history is over. You have questions? We have answers.
www.thedrive.com www.thedrive.com

Tony and his partner were running as a privateers in M/P (no factory support) but had been promised some help from Ford. I will try to put another link here to the write up I helped Tony get on the CJ site which tells the whole story which is the prelude to him getting the 69/70 Mustang.

8F02R135038 | Mustang 428 Cobra Jet Registry

www.428cobrajet.org www.428cobrajet.org
 
I have read the article on Big Red interesting machine.
Neat history but too bad the 68 met a demise.
And then,,,,,
 
Yes Fred, still amazes me on the stuff they did or at least tried back in the day. Seems like they kind of shy away from that kind of stuff now, maybe more focused on guaranteed profitable?

There are a few of the 135 cars left (some are still unknown where they are) but crashing them or towing accidents were part of it back then. I'm sure everyone here who has ever towed a trailer has a story! I know I do.

Ok, back to the story and sorry if it's a little scattered but I am trying to put it in the timeline as I learned.

If you read Tonys 135 story, one of the big things with Ford was NO ONE beats the factory guys. Ford had picked the few and they got the best of everything and full support. Being a privateer, all Tony wanted was at least to be playing on a level field. So, when he started running quicker than the factory guys he was taken into the fold. The 69/70 (and I will explain why I describe it that way soon) came as a gift for throwing the 68 Indy race. Tonys cousin Domonic Garafoli (who just passed away) worked as a mechanic in the experimental garage or X garage where all Fords racing efforts (all types) and Fords prototype vehicles were worked on. I say Ford stuff because Dearborn Steel Tubing and Kar Kraft (aka skunkworks) did some prototype work as well. It is known that Skunkworks did the initial prototype for the 'Boss' program (that name actually came later) in August of 1968 with a regular 69 fastback. After presenting the prototypes to Ford brass, the Boss 302/429 programs officially kicked off in September. It was decided Kar Kraft would handle the Boss 429 (as the purpose was to get the engine approved for NASCAR use and would only need low production numbers) and Ford would handle the Boss 302.

OK back to what I knew when I bought it. There was the one dollar bill of sale which I actually never got to see (Larry threw it away!). Another thing it had was a weird windshield VIN tag. Made no sense at the time but we used it in the import paperwork as it was there. The car did also have a 69 door tag but I think with conversations with the border guys before I went to Minot they said to use the windshield tag number.

DSC_5407.JPG


When I first went to Detroit and Carl arranged for me to meet Tony he filled in what he knew of the Mustang. His information came from his cousin Domenic who worked in the x garage across the aisle from where the Mustang was built so he saw and checked on what was happening. He had told Tony the car was used for brake testing and had a Boss 302 engine in it. At that time there were only prototype engines available as production had not yet started. I failed to mention the speedometer showed 833 miles which I always wondered about but with this new information from Tony and the brake testing that part seemed to fit. Also with the early Boss motor some testing would have been being done on the motor. This was about all Tony or I knew at that time. I do not remember when I started pulling stuff apart and started finding more interesting stuff but it may have been when I back halfed the car? When I decided, really I was forced to or quit racing, to upgrade with the new roller motor the SS springs were being pushed past their ability. As all that raced at Southwinds back in the day know the asphalt start line and anything that made some torque was troublesome. I do admit part of the problem was the 20 year old driver that couldn't seem to leave at 3000 instead of 5000!

Mustang 18photoshoped.jpg

For those who may notice, yes it's really red but late night, head hurt, didn't want to even start it but was told I had to make a pass so wanted to get it over with!! Oh to be 20 again, on second thought NO.

Will carry on later,
 
Looks like you worked it pretty hard on that launch!
There is no way in hell I'd be lucky enough to make it through my 20s again!!!
But whatta ride,,lol
Fred
 
Ya Fred by this time I was getting more used to the car, at first was a big jump from the little small block street car. It used to buckle in the quarter panels as it still was stock frame with only the front spring mounts moved it a bit with offset rear shackles. Just had to open the trunk and pop it out, was thinking at some point it probably won't pop out, should probably fix this.

Has been and still is a bit of a mystery but I know lots more than back in 1975. I couldn't have imagined how hard it is to get 'insider' information from Ford from back in the day. I keep telling these engineers/executives that I can talk to, they should be proud of what they accomplished but they are still very guarded about what they say or will admit to.

Started the back half work with instruction from Tom Smith of Wolverine Chassis who Carl put me in touch with. Of course, I had to pull the car apart for this and started finding other 'interesting' stuff. The gauge cluster had a sticker on the back saying 'Prototype Saline Plant' and there was a date code of October 9, 1968, the seats had prototype tags with early 69 dates and some of the interior trim had numbers which matched the mysterious dash plate. I know what a regular steering box tag looks like and this one had a single line brass tag? All interesting but I had no idea on what it meant, didn't have anything to do with brakes? I started asking Tony if he could find anything out on what it all means? He did not know at that point either.


Seat Tags (Frontside).jpg

Being in the middle of the prairies, I had no clue of what the 'big guys' were doing in Super Stock. Not many good intake manifolds for the FE were made at that time and the rules said any manifold as long as it was the same configuration as stock. Here was Carls solution. i thought it neat!

Intake.jpg


Intake 2.jpg

To be continued....
 
With anticipation……..and,thanks for your great contribution here !
 
Thanks guys, glad you are liking it.

After quizzing Tony about the tags/numbers, he got another friend of his involved who worked at Ford in marketing and historical research who had access to the Ford archives, Bill Bozgan. He was able to decode the windshield vin and has recently given me the best description of how the prototype system worked within Ford.

X0AAD63CZ0283

X - prototype
0 - 1970 model year
AAD - Allan Park Pilot Plant
63C - Mach 1 Sportsroof
Z - Mustang
0283 - Denotes series and vehicle tracking number.

200 series is a composite prototype, which means they started with something already built and modified it as required. 83 is the individual vehicles tracking number so the engineers could modify what was required of this particular prototype and keep track of the parts needed.

A little more on the prototype process within Ford from Bill:

Each 'customer' aka engineering group identifies the number of prototypes they will require to accomplish their testing programs. Finance and product development decide what customers can 'share' a vehicle (for example, one vehicle can perhaps do audio system, leak testing and electrical durability) meaning one prototype is built instead of three. After the total number of vehicles is determined, what type of testing is best suited for different classes of vehicle are made.
100 series 'mules' get long term tests like power train durability
200 series 'mechanical prototypes' get more production intent parts and sheet metal that is representative but not made with production tooling
300 series 'engineering prototypes' are very close in appearance and function to production vehicles, and can be production tool parts but most likely are made with prototype tooling. Usually painted white.
400 series are crash test cars using production tooled sheet metal and structure, usually a tan color known as crash car chammy.
500 series are tool tryout using production tool parts only
others as well 6 and 700 series, design aid, etc. but you get the picture.

Now a lot of things make sense to me, understood the different things going on with the same vehicle!

I know some on here know Bruce Williams, he has been a friend forever, first met him at the track (he worked for Les, announced for awhile, etc.) and besides doing all my graphics stuff for me has known about the car from the beginning. When I would come back to Canada we would visit and usually the question would come up, what are you doing with the Mustang? I really didn't know, tossed around different things, even thought about streeting it but the vin would never work plus the import documents could become a problem. Back then you could not import a 'street' vehicle unless it met the antique class, being it was only 5 years old when I brought it to Canada the rules said it could not be street drivable. It would be up to the border guys and appraiser I had to hire at the border, that worked out but I had reservations about now trying to street it for those reasons. I had good secure storage with my brother inlaw (we built a 40 x 60 quonset on his farm and 1/2 was mine) but now he had some crazy idea to sell the farm and move to BC? So was back in Canada and Bruce asked the same question, I answered with I will probably look to sell the car. I had already written off ever bringing it here with our humidity even though we have a track, just couldn't do that to the Mustang. It was only a few hours later I got a call from Bruce, 'we want to look at the car'. I phoned to let them know I was coming out to the quonset as it was already getting late in the day. That was the first time I met Byron Thiessen. Bruce brought out a potential buyer and we all looked over the car, had some discussions with the guy and I rounded up all the information I had on it until that point and gave it to him. He did agree the best thing for the car was to put it back to the early 70's state which made me feel a little better. A few days later I am cruising the net and there was ALL the info on a Boss forum, some guys were trashing it as a fake, worse yet others were saying 'just tell me where it's at and I will look after it for you! Up until now, few knew what it was and fewer knew where it was and I felt secure leaving it there. After finding out who posted all the info, which I guess in the end was my fault as I didn't say not to, and expressing my displeasure and getting it taken down immediately I was a little freaked out over the whole thing. It is unfortunate but there are those out who take vin tags off wrecks to rebody stuff, etc. and my thought was now that some of the tags and other info was posted someone will try use this to create fake stuff. I knew it was too late as once it's out you can't take it back. Anyway, this pushed me to finally do something with it and made a deal with Byron to do the restoration for me rather than selling it.

Picture 012.jpg


more to come...
 
Some may not know Byron of Creative Concepts and Restoration, I can tell you he's a great guy with a ton of talent, I was lucky he liked the car. He and his helper Wes got the Mustang in September of 2012 and started the process. We had decided it would be transformed back to the 1970 Mustang that Tony originally got from Ford, as it was a 1969 when I got it. Tony had previously explained to me that around 1972 he perceived an advantage running a SCJ motor vs the CJ motor and after talking with NHRA he was told Ford had not yet released official production numbers to them for this combination in the Mustang body so he was forced to change the car to a 1969 model year to legally run the SCJ motor. We picked a photo from a December 1971 article done on Tony and the Mustang by Alex Warlordy in Popular Hot Rodding magazine as the end result of the restoration. Some may recognize his name as he wrote quite a few racing related books.

Copy of Stark Hickey Dyno Center.jpg


I have to explain the SS/HA now, this denotes an automatic where SS/H is for manual trans. I had never known the car to have been an automatic. I don't remember the year but I was in Canada when my wife called me and said I found a magazine article on Tony Rainero and his SS/HA Mustang. I said it must be wrong but pick up the magazine anyway, I will figure it out later. When I got back home and checked it out, sure enough Tony, the Mustang and an automatic! I was very old school on automatics, thought they were only invented so (politically incorrect gender here) could tie up traffic, never meant for a race car. Carl Holbrook (who always ran autos) kept telling me that the autos will be faster than the sticks one day! He was correct as he knew of the development work on trans brakes, but at least now with the Jericos and like the sticks are back on top! Sorry, back to the story, called Tony to say what the?? Oh ya he said, Ford was developing high stall converters and needed a test bed. He said they tried 3 different ones, called X, Y and Z. Tony said the first two were junk, but the Z was the one, you could rev the motor to 3500 and the car wouldn't move. They were faster but because they were 'foot braking' at the time (no trans brakes yet) so lacked consistency. Veering off a bit again, when Ford officially quit racing, they asked Tony if he wanted anything, the Z converter he said. I guess because they were still in development it needed 'freshening' often, he asked what do I do when it goes away? Send it to B&M, tell them who you are and what it is and they will look after it for you. This happened, Tony sent it as instructed but what he got back wasn't what he sent, he inquired but never got it back.

will carry on tomorrow...
 
Yes ,very cool story indeed ! Thanks for posting (y)
And thanks to @PG409 for nudging Bob into this great history lesson on the mustang !! You seem to have a knack for waking up the forum when things get quiet lol.
 
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