By the late sixties, the definitive muscle car was the Mustang. It invented the term “pony car”; long hood, big engine, short rear and low price. And by 1968 every single large car manufacturer had a variety of the pony car. GM by then had the Firebird, Camaro and Barracuda, Ford re-invented it by going deeper with the Mustang(fastback and coupe) and let Mercury in on the fun with the Cougar and AMC came with the Javelin. Late entries to the fun were Chrysler with the Challenger and the updated ‘Cuda in 1970.
However, by the turn of the decade the pony car was actually beginning to influence the whole world. In Europe, Ford brought the Capri and to Australia they gave the Falcon, while GM was dealing out the Vauxhall Firenza, or more popularly known as the Opel Manta. In Japan, Toyota brought in the Celica to begin to compete on the playing field too.
And kit manufacturers have been really generous with the original muscle car. Every single generation’s had every single edition covered, some better than others. Monogram brought out the 1970 Mustang kit way back in 1981 and has since been improving upon it. It’s been re-released around twelve times since, every time in a different jacket; some were the Boss 302, some were the Boss 429, some were both, hell some even came as the famous Mach 1 and in 2007 Revell released them in the same box under their excellent “Special Edition” line. Which comes down to the mold being a lot more crisp and more detailed, a much much better decal sheet and of course having all the bits to go fully one way or the other.
Now a long time ago I bought the Mustang Boss 429 kit on the cheap with this kit in mind; the 2 in 1 of this kit is so good that it warrants a whole separate kit for spares. I wanted to build both version that come with this kit, the Mach 1 and the Boss 302. And look back in the future for the Mach 1, but for now back to the Boss 302;
The whole kit changes accordingly, the engine size, the decals and the wheels. One thing worth noting straight off the bat is that the 302 did get a nice extra set of decals in white, which I promptly used. The white stripes were rare on the car, only coming with black paint jobs, though sadly the Mach 1 didn’t get the same treatment and only has the black 351 stripes. The other neat little changes are spare grilles for either version since the Boss didn’t come with the grille lights.
The legendary 5.0L engine that Ford Mustangs are still asciociated with to this day, the 302, is replicated fantastically. Down to the little Ford emblems on the rocker covers, the little breathers on them, so on. The decals help, a lot. But it helps that Revell put effort into making it crisp, just like the Charger engine molds, these will look good for a long, long time to come, though sadly its 1/24th scale likely means the engine won’t see a lot of use cross-kits from here on out. But still, it’s a fantastically molded engine block. The “custom” bits, like the so called “Cross Boss” intake manifold(fantastic Trans-Am goodie made by Autolite back in 1969, rarely if ever seen on a stock 302), is fantastically done for this kit and is a nice legacy piece.
But some things haven’t changed since 1981, even if the box claims new and improved tooling. While on the outside, the car does have few to no mold lines at all, on the inside it’s a different story. I mean, they’re cleverly hidden this is true but the injection marks are… significant on this model. So much so that you have to trim them before building cause they will get in the way of the structural integrity of the whole model. This is especially bad with the rear bumper where the chassis is forcing it outwards due to the two giant injection lumps.
Though, other than that, it is a perfectly done kit. It’s one of those Monogram legacy kits that stands the test of time thanks to Revell re-tooling it. It’s fantastic, pretty and goes together really well, with some work here and there. I bought a can of metallic blue paint(a color not available in ’70 with the white stripes, only with black stripes) and figured I’d try to get a nice and popping blue like the old ’65 Shelby GT500 fastback, used some Goodyear Eagle GTII white letter tire decals to get the wheels to stick out more and wrapped it up.
It’s a shame how little Fords I’ve built over the years, since nearly any model you can name has a really good kit attached to it by either Revell or AMT these days. But I’m gonna be changing that in the future, there’s a few Mustangs on the way.
’70 Ford Mustang Boss 302 specifications:
Kit: #85-4203
Skill Level: 2
Parts: 144
Molded in: White
Scale: 1/24