As you approach George Muse’s Mustang, you appreciate the custom touches. This is a clean, custom 1970 Mustang — or is it? A peep under the hood reveals the Coyote’s high-revving RoadRunner cousin, the 5.0-liter engine that motivated the 2012-2013 Boss 302s. Engine swaps are common, but further investigation reveals a complete Boss 302 interior.
He wanted to team up with us but wanted to do a car we’d never done before, so it was unique to him. The result of meeting George at Mustang Week is what we call the ‘FrankenBoss…’ — Aaron Duncan, Duncan Brothers Customs
There is more to this story than a simple engine swap, and it was just that sort of discovery process that led George to commission the construction of this car (later dubbed ‘FrankenBoss’). Long before he championed this custom project, however, he was a Blue Oval fan from his formative years.
Believe it or not, a 2012 Boss 302 Laguna Seca is lurking under the sheet metal of this completely custom 1970 Mustang body. Featuring handmade fenders, door skins, and quarters panels, it wears a custom hood based on a 2012 structure but fitted with a 1969 Mustang skin and a 1968-70 GTO center with Ram Air scoops. Its 1969 bumpers are widened, frenched, and painted body color, while carbon fiber equivalents supplanted all of its chrome and polished bits.
“I’ve always been a Ford guy and drag-raced them since I was in high school. Even before, my mom and dad were partial to Fords and Mercurys, especially, so I would just become a Ford guy myself. Not that I don’t love all the others, and I’ve had others myself,” George said. “My brother’s a year younger than I am, and he’s had probably close to 80 cars in his lifetime, and all different brands. We built cars together, so I got to taste what the other manufacturers are all about. So I’m not a Ford-only guy, but they were always my favorites.”
His first car was a Ford Falcon, which he viewed as the greatest car at the time. Over the years, he raced a Ford Thunderbird in the Top Sportsman drag racing competition. In more recent memory, he restored a 1969 Mustang Mach 1, which earned numerous trophies and made appearances at Mustang Week over the years.
Some of his vehicles have a more noble purpose beyond the show field or the race track. A case in point is a classic Comet on loan to a friend in the Northeast who puts it to good use.
“The other car that I still own is a 1965 Mercury Comet Cyclone — with a 289 Hi-Po, a four-speed, and a black with a red interior — that has a history and story all in itself. It’s actually up in New York on Long Island,” George said. “I’m part of a racing ministry called Racers for Jesus. My good friend is a track chaplain at the local racetrack out on Long Island, New York. Pastor Scott Kraniak doesn’t race the car, but he uses it for the parade laps and the invocations, and it’s just been an amazing witness to the racers and teams. That car has its purpose serving the lord, and that’s why it’s still there and not here with me in Myrtle Beach.”
Under the hood of the car, known as the FrankenBoss, is the RoadRunner 5.0-liter engine that propelled this 2012 Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca in its factory form. This member of the Coyote engine family wears a unique short-runner intake manifold, CNC-ported cylinder heads, and exhaust cams producing an additional millimeter of lift. It delivers a redline 500 rpm higher than its Coyote contemporaries and pumps out 444 horsepower and 380 lb-ft of torque in factory form. This one breathes in through a Volant cold-air intake framed by a custom radiator cover and exhales through Borla crate mufflers.
It was bringing his ’69 Mach 1 to Mustang Week in 2021 that lit the spark, bringing the FrankenBoss to life. Just as we approached George’s car with curiosity, he did the same with one of the creations that Duncan Brothers previously displayed in Myrtle Beach.
“I have always loved the ’69 and ’70s, and when I ran into the Duncan brothers, I was at the Mustang Week convention center the last year they had it at the convention center. Yeah, in 2021, my car was inside the convention center, and I just was walking around the vendor’s area with my brother, and we saw one of the Duncan Brothers’ cars,” he recalled. “That was what I thought was a ’69, and I looked in the engine compartment, I said, ‘Right, OK, it’s a transplant. It’s got a late-model Coyote motor in it.’ But then I just thought, ‘Something’s different about this car. You don’t realize it, but the car is actually bigger than what a ’69 or ’70 would be. Then I went around the side of it and looked inside and saw the interior of the car. This was more than just the transplant.”
For those unfamiliar with the Duncan Brothers operation, it is a family restoration shop with involvement from grandparents, uncles, and cousins. Within the family, the younger Duncans have embraced the concept of ‘Modern Vintage,’ which they are pushing forward with their builds that transfer classic bodies onto modern vehicles to deliver a finished product that looks retro but performs just like a current ride. In this case, George worked closely with Duncan Brothers Customs to formulate a uniquely classic appearance.
“I think you could call it a collaboration. I had my ideas of what I wanted in the car, and Aaron, Joey, and the Duncan family had theirs. If you know anything about the Duncans, it’s a third-generation family restoration business started by Rick, Aaron, and Joey, his younger brother, but the whole family is involved,” George explained. “They’re the ones that want to take the business to a level of the vintage restomod. Where his dad and his uncle were doing more of the classic, full-frame-off restorations, so that was what they were interested in. Aaron and Joey had an idea where they wanted to take this business using later model reskinned restomods.”
Though there have been cars with interior swaps, the clue that the FrankenBoss is something special is the complete 2012 Boss 302 Laguna Seca interior. Primarily as the factory intended, the interior benefits from custom Alea Leather-wrapped Recaro seats and door panel inserts. The X-brace in place of the rear seat is part of the Laguna Seca chassis fortifications that yielded a 10-percent improvement in stiffness over a standard Boss 302.
“Believe it or not, I met him at Mustang Week 2021. We had displayed one of our Modern Vintage builds (The Boogeyman, a.k.a. John Wick Mustang on a 2012 GT platform), and George was impressed by it,” Aaron added. “He wanted to team up with us but wanted to do a car we’d never done before, so it was unique to him. The result of meeting George at Mustang Week is what we call the ‘FrankenBoss.’”
While it is skinned as a fully customized 1970 Mustang, the underlying machinery is not just a modern Boss 302 but the performance-optimized, limited-production Laguna Seca version named after the history road course in Northern California. Just north of 1,500 of these were produced over the 2012-2013 model years, with only 767 created in the 2012 model year. They featured unique front splitters, rear wings, and underbody aerodynamics, along with chassis fortifications, lightweight wheels, and R-compound tires working with unique suspension calibrations to push its lateral grip to 1.03 g.
Though it sits just right, the suspension underneath is straight from the factory. The body panels are quite custom, with the quarter panels benefitting from the creative partnership between the owner and Duncan Brothers Customs, who brought this beast to life. Running down the side are 2015-23 Mustang side splitters wrapped in carbon fiber, while the driver-side fuel door is sourced from a 1999 Ford Windstar that the eldest Duncan found at a junkyard.
“…Rick Duncan said, ‘I have a customer here who wanted us to build the car for him. It’s a Boss 302, but it’s a Laguna Seca, and he changed his mind. He decided he wanted to build a pickup truck instead. So I think the car will be for sale,’ George recalled. “So Rick inquired about it, and I wound up buying that car…”
While it might seem sacrilegious to the purists, transforming one of these rare performers into a Modern Vintage monster created something even more unique. The FrankenBoss, based on a rendering designed by Duncan’s cousin Danny, is a true one-of-one that retains the performance spirit of the Laguna Seca with a nod to the history of the original pony car.
As the FrankenBoss came together, American Racing used the project as a vehicle to launch its TTF Bronze wheels. The wheels provide a nice contrast to the paint, and they are wrapped in sticky Nitto NT555 G2 rubber. Framed by the five-spokes are Baer six-piston brakes at all four corners. The Monster Green-coated calipers clamp down on drilled and slotted rotors to real in all that Boss 302 speed.
“You’re going to get the naysayers. I even had that with my Mach 1. The purists they’ll never see it. That’s OK,” George said. “I would say 95 percent of the people are just overwhelmed by the car…”
You can count us among those smitten by this unique machine when we spotted it at the 2024 Mustang Week car show. So much so that it earned a spot in the coveted Ford Muscle Great 8, a single-eliminator contest voted for on the Ford Muscle Facebook page. So watch for stories on the other Great 8 contestants, and be sure to vote for your favorites.
There are so many custom details on this ride that it requires spending quality time with the car to soak them all in. The 1969 Mustang taillight panel features custom flush-mounted taillights with carbon fiber bezels, while the 1970 Mustang headlight buckets are customized with HID 2012 foglights in place of fake air ducts, while 7-inch Redline Lumtronix headlights engraved with Boss 302 type reveal the true nature of this ride. Down low in front it wears a carbon fiber-wrapped 1969 Mustang chin spoiler with paint-matched mounted air drafters and a custom lower grille with functional brake cooling ducts. Meanwhile, a custom rear diffuser inspired by the C7 Corvette controls the air out back.
The winning car owner will score a trip to Mustang Week Texas in April 2025, including a hotel room for four days, a VIP Package including a Golden Ticket (access to every event), a $500 gas card, and $500 for food and drinks. The winner will accept a Ford Muscle Great 8 winner trophy on stage at Mustang Week Texas. The winning vehicle will also be immortalized on a Mustang Week 2025 T-shirt.
