Here’s a contender for you: The BOSS 429 💪
A very rare and collectible Mustang with only 1358 total units ever produced between 1969 & 1970. The sole reason for the 429 motor to exist was to kick ass in NASCAR, but homologation rules required 500 road cars to house this motor to qualify for competition, so Ford decided to jam them into some Mustangs.
At the time, the 426 Hemi motor from Dodge was the king of the road and on track. Ford couldn’t have that, so they decided to contract a small engineering firm in Dearborn, Michigan named “Kar Kraft” to pull Mustangs off the assembly line and build these motors from the ground up.
Initially this motor was supposed to go into the larger Ford Galaxie, but Ford executive Bunky Knudsen decided it was going into the Mustang. The engineers said that the motor couldn’t fit into the car, but good old Bunky said “Make it fit”.
The story goes that these motors were CAPABLE of 620hp, but Ford detuned it down to 375hp for a few reasons. One was so the average customer wouldn’t wrap their prized Pony around a telephone pole; the second being that insurance rates would be too high with a high horsepower car, and thirdly, the EPA started becoming more strict when it came to emissions. Even though it was rated at 375hp, most claim that this car is closer to 420hp out the box.
📸Sources: 1 wikipedia | 2 wikipedia | 3 @Ford | 4 Ford Performance | 5 wikipedia | 6 Ford Performance| 7 @donutmedia |