The Boss
302 was created as part of Ford’s
homologation
efforts. These rules allowed Ford to certify cars to race.
At the
time, Ford was pursuing the strategy of
“Race on
Sunday, Sell on Monday.” For the Mustang at least,
the
strategy worked out very well.
When the
Mustang first debuted,
Ford
asked for Carroll Shelby’s
help to make it a race-ready machine.
The GT350R held
the B-class Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) title,
and made
people pay attention to the race-potential of the Mustang.
By 1969,
Carroll Shelby was looking to
take a
break from designing cars.
Ford
needed a new contender for the SCCA league.