The term “track-focused Mustang” long served as the dictionary definition of an oxymoron for the snootier performance car enthusiast, but in the last seven or eight years the Mustang has become this sort of do-it-all performance car. We’ve had revvy Mustangs (the GT350/350R), we’ve had Mustang’s packing heat (the 760bhp Shelby GT500) and we’ve now got a driver’s Mustang – the latest Dark Horse version – to complete the lineup. Whilst the Mustang still conjures images of bygone Americana, the Mustang, as it stands, is serious performance car.
Back at the turn of the century, the same could not be said as the awkward fourth-generation of Mustang did what all iconic American nameplates did at the time: it existed. The fourth-generation Mustang was an altogether curvier affair than earlier cars, and a departure from the ’80s wedge that was the Fox Body Mustang.
At the turn of the 21st century track-focused road car was nowhere near as commonplace back in the early 2000s, but Ford were determined to make their mark with the Ford (technically SVT) Mustang Cobra R. The folks at SVT, Ford’s high performance vehicle division (think BMW M), had an unenviable task ahead of them. Making a Mustang handle isn’t an impossibility, but it takes a whole lot of work and a whole load of money, something that would very difficult in a mega corporation like Ford, where the accountants don’t embody physical bodies, but instead exist as a sort of gaseous mass that enables them spread over the entire company.
With many Ford projects there were to be as few bespoke in-house parts as possible. Much like Lego designers, the SVT engineers were forced to pick and choose the best parts that were already available and then cobble them together into the best possible package. The engine for the Cobra R was an iron-blocked monster that started life as a workhorse under the bonnet of many of Ford’s pickup trucks. The SVT folks did what they could, fitting a double-overhead camshaft head with individual throttle bodies – that would later serve on the Ford GT – which helped the 5.4 Litre V8 generate 385bhp and a matching 385 lb-ft of torque. Unfortunately, using that big iron block meant the Cobra R’s weight distribution stood at an unwieldy 57:43 front to rear. It’s a little unfair to consider the Cobra R as some half-baked parts-bin raid as it actually has some good constituent parts. Ford onboarded a load of aftermarket partners when making the Cobra R, so it’s fitted with a Borla side-exit exhaust, Bilstein shock absorbers partnered with Eibach springs, brakes from Brembo and a tougher locking diff from Gerodisc. The boys and girls at SVT also ensured the Cobra R had an independent rear suspension setup to improve its dynamic abilities. And dynamically, the Cobra R absolutely ran rings around any prior Mustangs, and even gave Corvette Z06 owners something to think about.
What defines the SVT Mustang Cobra R more than all of that is its spirit. It is the vanguard for the hard-as-nails American track car and the details of the Cobra R are immaculate. Firstly, the design is just so aggressive and it has a silhouette that may be one of the finest ever to grace a muscle car. The fourth-gen Mustang may have been somewhat of a damp squib, but the Cobra R looks so tough with its – and this gets chucked around a lot in car talk – jutting splitter, massive bonnet bulge, huge wheels, massive rear wing and side-exit exhaust. The nose-down, backside-up visual is pure racing car and the Cobra R’s rectangular headlight units give the car a real scowl. You could have your Cobra R in any colour as long as that colour was Performance Red.
What also made the Cobra R stand out with its rather weedy looking rear bumper but, that too, served a purpose. For some reason, SVT fitted the Cobra R with a massive 20 gallon (90 Litre) race-spec fuel cell. The fuel cell was so deep that a standard rear-exit exhaust was no longer feasible which lead to the awesome side-exit exhaust that car was supplied with. The rear bumper was pinched from a V6 Mustang as it was cheaper to make without the exhaust cutouts compared to the V8 rear bumper.
The interior was stripped out too, with no aircon, radio, cruise control or rear seats, and the front seats were those gorgeous Recaros that were fitted to Type-R Hondas of the same period.
What the Cobra R also represents is the DIY style of most American car enthusiasts. They love to tinker and to do things themselves, and the Cobra R catered for that. The front splitter was removable and the bonnet had little cooling vanes that could be cut out to reduce under bonnet temperatures.
With this, the SVT Mustang Cobra R sits as one of the most iconic and purposeful Mustangs ever. It’s descendants would be proud.
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