This is a serious car for serious racing.
Weekly video series Muscle Car of the Week covers some pretty cool American steel, and this time they dug into a Blue Oval modern legend. There’s no denying the brutal nature of the 2010 Ford Mustang Super Cobra Jet. Only 50 were built by hand, with anything that doesn’t get you down the track faster left out. Add in some extra go-fast parts and you have a sub-9-second quarter mile car well within your reach.
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Obviously, this is a version of the Ford Mustang, called the FR500CJ, made only for track use. Not only is the sound deadener gone, so is power steering, power brakes, and every other nicety. What’s added is absolutely brutal. A Ford Racing 5.4-liter 32-valve V8 gets force-fed by a 4.0-liter Whipple Supercharger. How can you not win with that combination? It kicks out over 900-horsepower, so you could murder tires all day long using this machine. Add to that a race-prepped C4 automatic transmission with launch control, a new trick introduced for 2010, and you have a pretty slick setup.
It was back in 2008 when Ford decided to commemorate the original 428 Super Cobra Jet, which was a 1968 model. What’s in the video is the 2010 model, which just evolved form the 2008 setup. Both were created with NHRA and Super Stock racing in mind.
One of the big advantages of something like the Cobra Jet is that it’s a readymade dragster. This turn-key solution doesn’t involve you having to buy a Ford Mustang, strip it down, install a roll cage and racing seats, upgrade the engine, and so forth. Everything is done for you, so you just get a helmet and learn how to race the quarter mile. Easy, right? Maybe not so much, but it does simplify things a bit if you’re looking to be that competitive on the drag strip.
