As we are speeding toward Christmas and gift buying and giving season, we’re going to be rattling off several book reviews in the coming weekend for you bibliophiles out there who dig reading about cars. Today we’re looking at Don Farr’s work, “Mustang Boss 302: From Racing Legend to Modern Muscle Car”. This book follows the whole history of the Boss 302 Mustang and delves deeply into the development of the modern version that is available today. Farr is qualified to speak on the subject having edited a couple of Mustang themed magazines and he wrote what is still recognized as one of the most detailed works on the original Boss 302 cars entitled, “Mustang Boss 302: Ford’s Trans-Am Ponycar”.
The book spends lots of time talking about the process of developing the original street and race versions of the Boss 302 and is packed with tons of Ford archival photos. In fact, the book is splt nearly in half between the historical content and the story of the modern Boss 302.
As much as we love history, we were more interested in seeing just how in-depth this book would go into the development of the “new” Boss 302. We have seen and read other books in the past where the “in depth” look inside an OEM’s processes consist of stock photos of assembly line workers and some token technical photos. Farr does not fall into this trap and goes into great detail on the whole process from design to engineering and testing.
Lots of people mistakenly think that there’s no one left at OEM manufacturers with true passion and love for performance cars. Those people are dead wrong and simply reading this book would dispel all of those thoughts. This car would not exist, nor would it perform like it does without the love and hours invested by engineers and designers 100% committed to constructing a car that would out perform even their own expectations. Hell, he even has a very cool sidebar about the story behind the TracKey technology this car comes with.
The book retails for $30.00 (US) and we’d recommend it to anyone looking for some great history on the original Boss 302 and to the modern Mustang fan who is looking to learn more about one of the coolest versions of the iconic pony car ever produced.
This book is available from Motorbooks.com, Amazon.com, and your local bookseller.