Electric Ford Mustang Cobra Jet Crowns 52 Years of Drag Racers
The new 1,400-horsepower Ford Mustang Cobra Jet is drag racing lightning in a battery.
“Cobra Jet” was the name of a big block V8 racing engine when it debuted in the Ford Mustang in 1968. That was when Ford first squeezed a huge 428 racing engine into the compact Mustang for drag racing. The company built another Mustang quarter horse in 1971, this time using the 429, which, despite its similar displacement, is a “385” family engine that is entirely different than the “FE” family 428.
Ford revived the Cobra Jet name in 2008, when the company applied to the car itself for the first time, creating a racing-only specialty Mustang. Two more iterations, in 2016 and 2018, boosted power and shortened the car’s quarter-mile elapsed time.
The $130,000 2018 Mustang Cobra Jet roared down the track like, well, like a jet, stopping the clocks in 8.5 seconds.
Now Ford has a one-off prototype electric Cobra Jet that will whisper through the quarter mile. But don’t mistake the car’s lack of audible assault for a lack of power. This new Cobra Jet is rated at 1,400 horsepower, which is enough to shave a few more tenths of a second off its elapsed time. That puts the Cobra Jet 1,400 into the low-8 second range at the drag strip.
