This 1970 Boss 302 “Barn Find” is Preserved, not Restored
Les Baer’s 1970 Boss 302 may be the first car to which the words barn find, survivor, and nut-and-bolt restoration apply all at once
The story starts on November 21, 1969, when Les Baer’s Boss 302 rolled off Ford’s Dearborn assembly plant wearing Calypso Coral paint with a Vermilion Red bucket seat interior. Of the 7,014 1970 Boss 302s, just 575 were painted that color, and only 78 had the Vermilion Red bucket seat interior.
From Dearborn, the Boss went to Hinchey Motors in Guymon, a city in the panhandle of Oklahoma. The car made an impression on the locals, some of whom still remember when the Calypso Coral Boss 302 came rolling in on the transport truck. It was a pretty loaded example: Magnum 500 wheels rarely seen on Boss 302 models, a close-ratio four-speed, rear window sports slats and rear spoiler, Shaker hoodscoop, a tachometer, and front bumper guards. Local history says that the first owner of the Boss was so unhappy the car arrived with the Vermilion Red interior instead of the black interior he ordered that he traded it off by 1972. In that short amount of time, he barely drove the car because of his disappointment.
Dwight Eubank, Blane Eubank’s cousin, swooped in when the car landed back on a dealership lot in 1972—this time in the Texas panhandle—and bought it for himself. According to Blane, Dwight street-drove the car for a bit before taking it to the track.
“He drove it just for the first couple of years, and then he was always interested in drag racing and he drag raced it at Amarillo and just different places around,” Blane recalled.
Blane was enamored with the car himself and kept track of it all through the 1970s and into the 1980s, when Dwight blew the motor and parked it.
“I think he just ran out of money and he started having kids and stuff and it got put aside and he just never got back to the car,” Blane said.
Even with a bad engine, the Boss didn’t lose its luster to Blane, who had taken a shine to the car way back when his cousin bought it. Knowing the Boss had become lame, and his cousin wasn’t doing anything with it, Blane began the slow and tedious process of making it his.
“I started calling him sometime in the late 1980s and was just pretty persistent and called him for several, several years,” Blane said. “He told me the car would never be for sale. But I would call him or see him at family reunions and take the opportunity to ask him about it until the summer of ’15 or ’16 when he said, ‘I might be interested in selling it,’ and my ears kind of perked up. We talked a little bit and the more we talked, the more he was interested in selling it, and we came to terms and I got to buy the car.”
By this time, the Boss 302 didn’t look like it did back in 1972 when Dwight bought it. In the interest of speed, Dwight had begun removing parts to save weight, including the entire interior. Luckily, the modifications he had performed were simple bolt-on additions, and he had saved every part he removed. Because the first owner hadn’t driven it long, and because Dwight quickly began putting miles on just one quarter-mile at a time, the Boss had just 30-some-thousand miles when it was parked. That was the good news. The bad news was that the parts were haphazardly strewn about the barn and mixed among parts from other cars, trucks, and even airplanes.
Although he was already a Mustang owner, Blane reached out to Mustang restoration guru Jason Billups in search of some guidance about his pending purchase. Blane found that putting a price on such a desirable but disassembled pony car was difficult, and he wanted an expert opinion. When Blane told Jason the price, Jason said, “If you don’t buy it, I will.”
