Shades of Carroll Shelby's Hot Rods . . . Ford Cobra Is Back and Hot!

11/25/96

We drove the 1997 Ford Mustang Cobra from the guys at Ford Special Vehicles Team (SVT), and we did it on a real race track, which seems to be where the car shines. Not all of us have a race track in our backyard, however, so we had to, as they say at Saab, "find our own road." We had a blast.

First, here's what you get when you decide you want a DIFFERENT kind of muscle car--the Mustang Cobra. The only clue that the car is a special Mustang, aside from the "Shelby-like" Coiled Cobra on the fender, is a larger grill opening that allows more air to the radiator when you are flogging the car unmercilfully on the outskirts of Keokuk. The motor is a 4.6 liter DOHC V8 with 32 valves and puts out 305 hp. This mill is hand made by a two-person team; they sign their handiwork and affix a badge to the top of the engine (like they used to do at Rolls Royce), so you know who to blame if you pop the thing. As a performance option you can order a wider/higher radiator and a bigger cooling fan. The cars steering has been modified for quick response, as has the front suspension geometry for precise handling. The best part is the fixing of B.F. Goodrich Comp T/A ZR radials to complement the suspension . . . you notice the firm grip IMMEDIATELY if you try to break the rear end loose: the car sticks. The Ford engineers have added a bit of suppleness to the ride, so that at the end of a trip you don't feel like you've been in a fully loaded Ranger F-250 all day.

The cars has big four wheel disc brakes because it doesn't want to be driven slow. If you are fortunate enough to find a place to dice with someone, you probably can go in to the corner deeper than the other guy, and on a striaght line. I never worry about anti theft systems, but if you intend to shell out close to thirty grand for the convertible version of the Cobra, you will be thrilled to know that Ford has an ignition key that contains a unique code selected from a potential of 72 quadrillion (72,000,000,000,000,000) combinations. I'm impressed.

The SVT people are going to produce 7,475 coupes and 2,525 rag tops and the base price is $25,860. It's a track car for the street . . . or is it a street car for the track?

Bill Maloney -- The Auto Channel