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" Like a lot of kids, I grew up around old iron. Alfa Romeos, MGs, the odd Triumph\u2014my father, Dan, an amateur racer, owned and drove more of them than I can count. But so did a lot of fathers.  My dad was different. When I was a boy, he set aside a midlevel marketing job of regular moves and little passion to follow his bliss: He wanted to start his own business. The first, an automotive bookstore, lasted only a few years. The second, a restoration shop that specialized in cantankerous European sports cars, existed in one form or another until I hit college.  That shop meant a lot to me. After school, I&amp;#039;d hang around my father&amp;#039;s toolbox, watching him spin wrenches and solve problems. He had been teaching me to work on cars for years, but the shop was a stark cementing of principles. It made everything real.  I didn&amp;#039;t think much of this\u2014and didn&amp;#039;t realize how important it was to me\u2014until one night in the fall of 1998, when I was 17. Dad and I drove 10 hours from our home in Kentucky to Watkins Glen, N.Y., for the 50th anniversary of the first postwar American sports car race, held on the town&amp;#039;s closed-off streets. Amateur drivers had flown around the town&amp;#039;s houses at full tilt, with only hay bales and bunting separating them from packed spectators. It was the beginning of the country&amp;#039;s modern speed era, a moment as significant as the inaugural Indianapolis 500 back in 1911. The area went on to host everything from IndyCars to Formula One\u2014from Andretti to Zanardi. The Glen&amp;#039;s public road races are gone, victims of safety concerns, but the heart of that culture lives on at an Adirondack-style resort called Seneca Lodge, which sits on a hill overlooking town. The lodge hasn&amp;#039;t changed much since 1948, and most people hope it never will, because it houses the most famous racing bar in America. My father took me there on our first night at the lodge back in &amp;#039;98. A gentle and relatively quiet man, he didn&amp;#039;t give me much warning that we were about to enter hallowed ground, a temple that has welcomed drivers since Truman was president. Instead, he just paused at the door and said, &amp;quot;This place is important.&amp;quot;  The Seneca Lodge bar turned out to be no larger than a two-car garage, unprepossessing and poorly lit. Tattered photographs of dead drivers were pinned above the bar. Browned victory wreaths hung from darkly varnished walls.  But the place was filled with legends\u2014heroes I had read about since I was a little boy. Formula One drivers and team managers sat in the corners, including 16-time Grand Prix winner Stirling Moss of Britain. American John Fitch, who won at Sebring and raced six times at Le Mans, was at a table with other winners who had too many checkered flags to their credit to count. There was pioneering American sports car driver and journalist Denise McCluggage. They were all in town for the anniversary, a living rogues&amp;#039; gallery from the stories of my youth. Dad and I stood there for a moment, soaking it all in, before he moved on to greet a few friends.  In that moment, I knew ... well, I wasn&amp;#039;t sure what I knew. But something clicked. A part of my life began to make sense.  In the years since, Dad and I have raced together and fixed cars together, and last summer we again walked through the door of the Seneca Lodge bar. The night wasn&amp;#039;t as celebratory for the patrons there, but we were both thrilled, and not just to be back. We were about to fulfill a dream\u2014a cross-country journey together to trace the history of American road racing, something we had wanted to do for years. Naturally, we started at the Glen. And for reasons both patriotic and reverent, we decided to make the trip in a 2012 Ford Mustang Boss 302.  The V-8-powered Boss is no ordinary Mustang. This is a rolling homage to the Boss 302s that contested the Sports Car Club of America&amp;#039;s Trans-American (aka Trans-Am) racing championship from 1969 to 1970. It&amp;#039;s a snarly collection of historical cues (C-shaped side stripes, rocker-mounted side-pipe exhausts) and legitimate performance cred (adjustable dampers, limited-slip differential, Brembo brakes, optional Recaro seats). In terms of emotional appeal and over-the-road talent, it might be the greatest ponycar ever built. The idea was to drive the Boss from Watkins Glen to California&amp;#039;s Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey. Along the way, we&amp;#039;d stop at a vintage race at Wisconsin&amp;#039;s Road America, test the Ford&amp;#039;s talents at a track day, and just generally inhale a bunch of blacktop. We spent most of the first night in the Seneca bar, which felt like a return to baptismal waters for me. The next morning, Dad pulled a dog\u2014eared copy of Dave Friedman&amp;#039;s Trans-Am: The Pony Car Wars 1966\u20141972 from his luggage. The book is packed with hero drivers and pictures of Mustangs being shotgunned around places like Laguna, which hosted the final race of Ford&amp;#039;s championship-winning 1970 Trans-Am season. This is where I learned that my father, a lifelong European-sports-car nut, has always had a soft spot for big V-8s. While loading the car, I walked out into the parking lot and found him staring at the Boss, arms crossed, giggling. My dad doesn&amp;#039;t giggle. Memo to Ford: Whatever you&amp;#039;re doing here, keep it up.  We gunned out of the Seneca at 9 am, sun glinting off the Boss&amp;#039;s long nose. Fifteen minutes later, remembering a recent conversation with a Ford engineer, I pulled into a Walmart. &amp;quot;I forgot,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;I need to buy a cheap wrench.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;What for?&amp;quot; Dad asked. &amp;quot;For America,&amp;quot; I said. Crawling underneath the Mustang in the parking lot\u2014we used a parking curb as a jacking ramp\u2014I loosened the exhaust brackets and pulled the factory-installed noise-abatement plates out of the side pipes, transforming the Boss&amp;#039;s 5.0-liter V-8 from a subtle rumbler to a rolling peace disturbance. &amp;quot;This is great,&amp;quot; I said, blasting up an on-ramp. &amp;quot;You think we&amp;#039;ll get tired of it?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t hear you!&amp;quot; Dad yelled. &amp;quot;Can we make it louder?&amp;quot;  It soon became apparent that the Boss, like most Mustangs, is happiest just above the speed limit. The car eased into a long-legged lope that implied California was just over the horizon. Pennsylvania and Ohio flew by, the newly opened side pipes crackling every time we stopped for fuel.  What is it about loud cars that reminds you of aircraft in wartime? Eighty-five mph in sixth gear produced a steady, comforting, dawn-patrol drone. Full-throttle gear drops made my skin tingle and prompted furtive glances toward the horizon. (Fighters! Twelve o&amp;#039;clock!) At one point, with the Mustang exploding through the top of third gear, I heard Dad mutter, &amp;quot;Combat emergency power.&amp;quot; When I looked over, he was squinting into the distance like Chuck Yeager. With I-80 being both long and boring, we had a lot of time to talk. Dad told me stories of his Kentucky youth\u2014how he crashed his MG Midget twice in high school, the big Detroit sleds his father drove, the moment he first felt drawn to muscle cars. At one point he paused and said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve always wanted a Mustang, but until now, it&amp;#039;s never felt right. This car has been seeping into my head for 40 years.&amp;quot;  We passed a school bus near Cleveland. When half the kids lowered their windows to watch, I stabbed the throttle, prompting cheers. Mustangs have been seeping into America&amp;#039;s head for a while.  We reached the tiny village of Elkhart Lake, Wis., at the end of the second day and headed for nearby Road America, a 4-mile-long, European-style track built in the 1950s. When my head hit the pillow that night, the Ford&amp;#039;s pipes still rumbled in my ears. The Boss&amp;#039;s 302-cube overhead-cam V-8 is an evolution of the 412-hp Coyote engine found in the Mustang GT. It produces 444 hp and revs to an astonishing 7500 rpm. The gains over a GT are courtesy of CNC-machined cylinder heads, a long-runner intake manifold, larger intake valves, higher-lift cams, and a host of other tweaks. Maximum torque (380 lb-ft) comes at a relatively high 4500 rpm, so the engine feels somewhat peaky. A baffled oil pan helps maintain oil pressure during cornering. ?The end result is a corker. The 302&amp;#039;s idle is smoother than poured cream, but the engine revs like it has a flywheel made of dryer lint. It reminds you of the weapons-grade V-8 fitted to the 1969\u201470 Boss 302s. And that&amp;#039;s why we went to Wisconsin.  A few weeks before, I learned that the Historic Trans-Am Group\u2014vintage racers who regularly exercise 1960s Trans-Am cars\u2014was going to be at Road America during our trip. A detour suddenly became mandatory. Watkins Glen hosted Trans-Am races for years, but Road America&amp;#039;s long, tree-lined straights, steep hills, and wincingly fast corners always felt more suited to it.  In the Trans-Am&amp;#039;s golden era\u20141966 to 1972\u2014the series featured production-based, factory-backed cars; star drivers; and competition so close that drivers often banged door handles. It&amp;#039;s been called the most crowd-pleasing racing in American history, and as the vintage cars\u2014some worth seven figures\u2014were started for the coming race, it was easy to see why. As each lit off, the noise mutated from an offbeat thunderclap\u2014BOOMa-whompa-BOOMa-whompa\u2014to a stunning cacophony. The drama was intoxicating. We walked over to Turn Six, a third-gear left-hander, for the start. On the first lap the cars exploded into sight with a gut-punching din. Dad laughed involuntarily. The field slithered and pulsed through the corner, two and three deep, each car jockeying for position in a series of feints and dodges.  The field spread out as the race went on until the sound seemingly came from everywhere. Several original Boss 302s\u2014including the championship-winning yellow 1970 car driven by Parnelli Jones and George Follmer\u2014worked their way to the front of the pack. When the checker fell, I had no idea who won, and I didn&amp;#039;t really care. I just wanted more.  Earlier that day we had met former Shelby Cobra racer Phil Gallant, who owns the first Boss 302 Trans-Am racer, a blue 1969 model that was built by Michigan&amp;#039;s legendary Kar Kraft shop, prepared by Carroll Shelby, and driven by American ace Dan Gurney. &amp;quot;These cars are heavy, so they react slower than a Cobra,&amp;quot; Gallant said. &amp;quot;They are a lot more dramatic\u2014you drive sideways.&amp;quot;  Walking back through the paddock, I ran into Jim Farley, Ford&amp;#039;s vice president of global marketing, who was there to race his Cobra. Farley, who helped usher the 2012 Boss to production, once said it deserved to be on YouTube &amp;quot;doing something illegal.&amp;quot; He told us about the car&amp;#039;s development and mentioned that he had just been doing laps in his own Boss at GingerMan Raceway in South Haven, Mich., to see what it could do. GingerMan is roughly 2 hours northeast of Chicago. Twenty-four hours later we were rolling into the track&amp;#039;s parking lot.  Caning the Ford around GingerMan&amp;#039;s 2.14 miles was a revelation\u2014the Boss has to be one of the most balanced street cars on the planet. Feed this car late apexes and gobs of throttle, and a blindfolded donkey could set lap records.  Dad did a few sideways laps and giggled again. When we grabbed a motel room that evening, he spent most of the night reading Brock Yates&amp;#039;s Sunday Driver, a firsthand account of a novice&amp;#039;s first season in the Trans-Am. I stared at the &amp;quot;Build Your Own&amp;quot; Mustang section of Ford&amp;#039;s website, smitten.   The rest of the Midwest passed in a haze of midsummer heat. By the time we hit Nebraska, I had called in a few favors and found a Ford dealer who might sell me a Boss at sticker price. By Utah, I knew the color I wanted (Competition Orange) and which options (Recaros, Torsen limited slip).  Talking about the Boss even got my father and me out of a few arguments\u2014our relationship has never been perfect, but the Mustang smoothed out the bumps. The car, like Seneca Lodge, meant something to us that we couldn&amp;#039;t nail down, something that obviously chimed with a lot of other people too. (I&amp;#039;ve never been on a trip where so many men asked what I was driving.)  A day later we rolled into Laguna Seca, thoroughly exhausted. A MotoGP race\u2014Formula One for motorcycles\u2014was carving up the track, so we left the dusty Ford in a parking lot and bought tickets. Laguna looks just as it did in Friedman&amp;#039;s book, albeit with modern, clinical catch fencing and lots of runoff area. Compared with the raw streets of the Glen, it was a cold testament to progress. But mostly, it made me hanker for more sideways Trans-Am cars. Or a Boss of my own.  About that: Two days earlier, at a truck stop in Grand Island, Neb., I stumbled onto a bin of Hot Wheels cars. Dad dug in and pulled out a Mustang. It was a 1970 Boss race car, complete with Parnelli Jones&amp;#039;s name on the roof. I bought it and rolled out of Grand Island feeling like I&amp;#039;d just won the lottery.  After returning the 2012 Boss to Ford, I flew home to Chicago and discussed the Mustang with my wife. She informed me that we couldn&amp;#039;t sell the couch and the refrigerator and most of my clothing to buy one. But a month later, Dad texted me a picture of a Kona Blue 2012 Boss 302 on temporary tags parked in his driveway. He had found one at his hometown Ford dealer one afternoon and bought it. Just like that.  I walked into my garage, moved my wife&amp;#039;s car out, and set the Hot Wheels Boss on the ground in its place. I stared at it for a few minutes, and then walked back into the house. This story appears in the July 2012 issue of Popular Mechanics. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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