THIS MIGHT BE FORD’S FASTEST COBRA JET EVER, BUT IT’S UPSETTING PURISTS

Debuted amongst a haze of green-washing, fast-charging EV mania in 2023, Ford’s latest Cobra Jet factory-produced race car shocked audiences, thankfully not in the same way some of its battery-powered brethren have been lately.

The Cobra Jet nameplate dates all the way back to the late-60s, where the FoMoCo built six
Cobra Jet 7L V8-powered Mustang drag cars for the Winternationals. Pieced together by a
skunkworks team of horsepower junkies in the backhallows of the Ford factory, the Cobra Jet
was centered around Ford’s 428-cube big block with a few select go-fast goodies slapped on.
The Cobra Jet was sharply priced back in the sixties, but only 50 were ever made.

Ford revived the moniker in 2008 to celebrate 40 years of the Cobra Jet name, producing 50
factory-built drag cars boasting a 5.4L blown V8, one or two of which allegedly even made it to
Australian shores.

The Cobra Jet came out of retirement again in 2018 for another milestone birthday. This time,
the dedicated drag car made a cool 1000hp thanks to a Whipple-blown 5.2L V8 engine and ran
an 8 second quarter mile off the showroom floor - not bad!

The most recent Cobra Jet offerings are still 8sec factory-built drag cars, but for reasons that I’m
sure we’ll look back on as trivial and a little bit funny, they’re electric.

In 2021, the Cobra Jet 1400 ran 8.12sec at almost 180mph, and we’re days away from seeing
what the Super Cobra Jet 1800 can do as it prepares to race at Pomona Drag Strip in California
(California is known for having some of the world’s strictest emissions laws, including an
arguably untenable approach to zero vehicle emissions by 2026).

The Super Cobra Jet 1800 uses improved suspension geometry and bigger slicks to cope with
the instant power and torque of the electric motors, while a concerted effort has been made to
pull weight from the car, using lighter battery packs.