After seeing the finished car restored to perfection by the Billups family (brothers Jason and Scott and their father, Gerald), Baer has a whole new appreciation for Black Jade Boss '9s. "There was absolutely zero rust on this car and everything was there," Baer says. "It had been sitting the guy drove it real hard for a couple years and then parked it. It has about 60,000 miles."
While 60,000 miles doesn't sound like much, that number of odometer turns is two lifetimes in the Boss '9 world. Just ask Jason Billups, who has worked on a lot of hi-po Mustangs, including a number of Boss 429s. "I believe it's probably the highest mileage Boss '9 I have ever touched, which is shocking," Billups says. "Typically, they had a lot of issues with that big engine, and it being a hemi, and they weren't great when it came to being reliable. Usually, when you work on a Boss '9, they have 20,000 to 30,000 miles and then that's about the time they broke down and they got parked."
The surprises didn't end with the relatively high mileage. Billups said the car was extremely complete and extremely solid when it rolled into his shop in December 2015. "This one had 60,000 and it still had its original smog equipment on it and that's unreal. It's just not normal at all. It still had the original rear shocks on it, the original space-saver spare, one of the original battery vents in the back," he says. "It had the original air cleaner, carburetor, heat shield—it might not sound like a big deal, but in the Boss '9 world, these are $30,000 worth of parts, and they're usually all gone."
From what he pieced together on its history, the Boss '9 spent its life in dry areas, making it the most rust-free Boss that's ever entered his orbit. Billups first saw the car when it was parked in the back corner of an acquaintance's shop, and at the time he didn't give it much thought. He said the acquaintance had bought it in the late 1990s but never drove it. Then, one day while he was quail hunting with Boss 429 guru Ed Meyer in Kansas, Billups' phone rang. It was the acquaintance asking if Billups was interested in buying the Black Jade Boss '9. Billups and Meyer put down their shotguns and headed to Shawnee to examine the car. After the pair gave the Boss '9 a thorough inspection and took some notes, Billups suggested his friend and customer Mike Smith buy the car. Smith thought he should have it, too, and Billups made a second trip to Shawnee to buy the car for Smith.
While the Black Jade Boss 429 was sitting in Billups' queue for a future restoration, circumstances changed, and Smith reluctantly sold the car for personal reasons. That's when Billups offered the car to Baer, who needed a Black Jade to fill out his Boss '9 color wheel. Once the Black Jade Boss '9 was under the lights at Billups Classic Cars, Jason and his brother Scott started searching for the few parts the car would need for a world-class restoration.
The list of parts was short: Boss front shocks, another battery vent for the Boss-only rear-mounted battery, and period-correct tires were tops on the list. While the dry climate in which the Boss '9 was driven was kind to its sheetmetal, the heat damaged parts of the interior. Luckily, the parts that Kar Kraft modified in order to stuff the 429 between the repositioned shock towers of a standard four-speed Mustang SportsRoof were limited to sheetmetal and suspension among a few other tricks, and the interiors are standard Mustang fare.
In bringing the interior back to showroom-fresh condition, the team at Billups Classic Cars used new old stock (N.O.S.) or excellent used Ford Motor Co. parts whenever the car's original parts couldn't be made to look new again. The Black Jade Boss '9 was fitted with used door panels, an N.O.S. dashpad, and new carpet. Billups said they also had to make a repair to the driver seat.
When it comes to the 429 engine—the heart of the Boss '9—Jason and Scott trusted the work to their father. Gerald Billups has the Midas touch when it comes to Ford engines, especially big-blocks and the hemi-head 429 in particular—even if they might drive him a little mad sometimes. "He hates these engines because of those O-rings," Billups jokes.
Those O-rings are found on both early Boss 429 S-series engines and later T-series 429s because the engines don't use gaskets between the aluminum heads and the cast-iron engine blocks. The O-rings are used to seal the tops of the cylinders and the water and oil passages between the heads and the block in this dry-deck method of engine assembly. Installing the O-rings will try the patience of the most experienced engine man. There's a lot of room for error during installation, and if they're not properly seated leaks abound. Yet Gerald happily takes whatever Boss 429 engine his sons throw at him and makes them run as fast and hard as Ford originally built them. "It runs like a bat out of hell," Baer says. "It's a really good car."
It's not just the performance that sold Baer on his latest Boss 429; he's also found himself taken with its mossy green color. "I didn't like the color at first when I saw it on them years ago, but now it's one of my favorite colors," Baer says. "A lot of the [Black Jade] cars I have seen over the last 20-25 years, they were just real old-looking, but after seeing the color right after it was done, it kicks ass." The jury is in, and it's not just Baer who thinks Black Jade is one "boss" color.
"I personally like the color," says Jason Billups. "It's probably not my favorite color—the black Boss '9s are my favorite—but it's probably my second favorite color. You don't see a lot of the Black Jade cars restored correctly, and when you see [the color] done well, it really pops." He's not alone. Black Jade seems to appeal to a fairer demographic, as well. "I don't know what it is, but women seem to love that color," Billups says. "They say, 'It's my favorite color. '"
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