Z/28 Camaro vs. Boss 302 Mustang

From the designer's board, to the race track and to the streets, it may have been the greatest head-to-head rivalry of the muscle car era. With each playing off the other to add to the mystique, it's doubtful that two cars have ever competed harder.

It was the Boss 302 Mustang and the Z/28 Camaro. Two racing legends that became high-powered street machines in the late sixties.

The late sixties marked the peak factory-supported racing. The major automakers were fully involved, financing large racing divisions and teams because success on the track meant success in the showrooms. For three years at the height of Trans Am Racing's popularity, the Z/28 and the Boss 302 dominated - the Camaro winning the overall championship in 1968 and 1969, and the Boss 302 taking the Trans Am title in 1970.

Interestingly, these two great rivals shared very common roots. Both were designed by noted stylist Larry Shinoda, who penned the lines for the Z/28 as Chevrolet's high-performance competitor for Ford's Mustang line in 1966. In 1968, Shinoda moved to Ford when Semon "Bunkie" Knudsen took over there and began to emphasize performance and put money into racing. His first dictate was for the company to produce the best-handling street car ever produced in Detroit. Shinoda took over the styling of the new car, and the Boss 302 was soon a reality.

But while it took until 1969 for Ford to decide to produce a true high-performance Mustang (that had been left up to Carroll Shelby in the early years), the Camaro Z/28 package was meant for racing right from the start. Prior even to the Camaro's debut in 1967, Chevy product promotion manager (re: "competition parts development chief") Vince Piggins had made plans for a racing Camaro. After seeing the Mustang dominate the first year of the SCCA's new Trans Am series - which was instituted almost as a direct result of Ford's introduction of the Mustang - Piggins went to work on Chevy's answer.

Putting together a new 302 V-8 engine to fit into the Trans Am circuit's 305 cubic inch displacement limit, Piggins' group provided the horsepower to make the new Z/28 a successful racer. Trans Am rules stated that, for a car to be eligible for racing, there had to be at least 1,000 like it produced and any special parts also had to be available to the public. Thus was born the first high-performance street Camaro as well.

When Ford answered in 1969, it did so in a big way. Shinoda's styling utilized the latest in aerodynamic testing, which had just become the norm in the middle sixties. For power, Ford took its old Tunnel Port 302 engine and modified it with new heads based on the 351 Cleveland design.

The result was the best-handling, most aerodynamically-sound muscle car yet built, running on over 450 horsepower in peak racing tune. The car was a hit on the track and with buyers, and a legend was born.

The Boss 302 only lasted one more year, as Ford de-emphasized racing when Lee Iacocca took over, but it went out with a bang when it claimed the 1970 Trans Am championship. The best-performing Mustang ever also disappeared from showrooms at the height of its popularity, with only 1,934 of the 1969 model having been sold, but a relatively-high total of 6,318 Boss 302s being built in 1970.

The Z/28, of course, has remained a popular high-performance package in Chevy's Camaro line. Even after government regulations made it impractical for the company to pour money into racing, the Z/28 remained popular with performance-minded buyers. Chevrolet briefly discontinued the Z/28 for 1975 and 1976, but brought in back in 1977 and it remains popular with performance buffs to this day.

But any classic muscle car enthusiast will tell you - there's never been another pair of rivals like the original Z/28 and Boss 302, and there likely won't be again.