1970 Plans for Production Boss 429 Talladega and More!
1969 was a wild and successful year. There were plans to continue to go all out for the 1970 NASCAR season. Ford had come a long way in the decade of the 60s. They had built a racing empire that won at LeMans and was successful on NASCAR short tracks and Super Speedways. David Pearson had won the NASCAR Championship in 1968 and 1969 so why not 1970?
It would all soon come to an abrupt end when Ford pulled out of racing. Ford didn’t just cut back on racing, they pulled out 100%. However, prior to pulling the plug Ford had some big plans in mind for the track and the street. Can you imagine how different things could have been if Ford had followed through with the King Cobra and Super Spoiler II!
We have seen the 1970 King Cobra and 1970 Spoiler II prototypes. They were not final products, just the bginning, now put that together with this information!
Thanks to Marty Burke for making these documents available.
While two Ford built King Cobra prototypes survive (to be “seen”), no-one has “seen” a Mercury prototype since none were built. This is not conjecture. Ford documents exist in support of that conclusion (not including the recent specious non-Ford letter-head, non period font document that purports to list door tag information, btw). Many of the original players in the King Cobra program are still around, too (or were interviewed when still among the living) to include Jaque Passino (Ford racing head); Charlie Gray (Ford NASCAR director); Bill Hollbrook (Ford race engineer and aerodynamacist on the KC program) Ralph Moody; Bud Moore and, btw, Larry Shinoda. I have spoken to each and every one of these men specifically about the King Cobra program. Not one of them reported anything about a (non clay) Mercury version of the proposed (only) car. The styling studio photos of the proposed Mercury KC taken in July of 1969 were not a real car. Rather, the car depicted had a clay nose with only one visible hoodline. Ford documents in my collection make clear that the entire KC program died aborning in the Summer of 1969. That a beautiful recreation of what a Mercury King Cobra (btw, this is how the cars were referred to in internal Ford documents) would have looked like has recently been built (from newer contsruction mat laid fiberglass) does not contradict this history. But all of this information notwithstanding, please consider that the relpica Mercury King Cobra reently built features a fiberglas bumper and hood (and other body panels) so heavy in construction that a broom stick (rather than stock hood springs) is required to prop the bonnett open. Who among us actually believes that the Ford Motor Company(who had in-house tort/legal counsel even then) would have ever allowed a car with those features to ever leave the proving grounds…IF it had actually been built, let-alone allow that car to be awarded to a departing employee for street duty? It is important to accurately preserve history. Suggesting, even obliquely, that a Mercury King Cobra has been “seen”, falls something short of that goal.
John Craft
Why has new documentation surfaced that says Ford did complete a 70 Mercury SpoilerII with a Boss 429.