'03 Cobra "It needed at least 3,200 and at most 3,500 rpm to get a good launch, but if I wasn't judicious with the throttle, it would light the Goodyears without even trying. There was very little range in the throttle to play with to get the optimal amount of wheelspin. I've also learned-after testing about five '03 Cobras-that the key to a smooth shift is by pretending the tach is slow. Short shifting at about 6,200 eliminates the forward jerk you'd find if you were to shift at 6,500."
'00 Cobra R "Camarillo [Motor Trend's previous testing venue-Ed.] always seemed to produce better decel numbers with its paint-free, chunky-monkey pavement, but it also chewed up tires more. At 118 feet [at Fontana-Ed.], the 60-0 mph is still a respectable number and only 2 feet from the previous best. An interesting aside: When I didn't know the car had ABS (I should've known at the start, duh), I found the brakes to be ultra-tractable, offering more feedback than I remember any Mustang before. Without waking the ABS pump, I managed to get a 121-foot stop. The car's multiple and consistent 100-0 stop was probably the more impressive of the two at 329 feet-zero drama, and arrow-straight and true."
'03 Cobra "Nothing notable except measurable fade after just two stops (100-0 and 60-0 mph). Neil [the test assistant-Ed.] told me, 'You're done,' when the distance grew by about 10 feet."
'00 Cobra R "This is what 40 years of Mustang development and refinement should feel like. Granted, the tires have a lot to do with how well it sticks, but the spring/ shock/bushing tuning is probably the best I've ever experienced from a Mustang. It's obvious from a driver's perspective that there were countless days spent on the development racetrack with this car. Hats off to the SVT crew who put this one together."
'03 Cobra "While it doesn't have any particularly bad habits, it's nothing special. If it had better tires that could stand up to more runs, I might've been able to eke out another mile-an-hour or so. The limit of this car becomes the predictability of the slide as one passes each cone. Predict correctly six times, and you'll find 65-plus mph, but not more."
'00 Cobra R "This is the Mustang to own and to drive-especially in anger. It'll snap your neck in any direction like an unregulated carnival ride. It'll have your neighbors calling in a 'disturbing the peace' report. And best of all, the guys in those decal-festooned imports won't know what the heck it is."
'03 Cobra "While it's a better-than-average straight-line car, it's merely a good handler. Compared to the '00 Cobra R, it feels like it came from a completely different group of engineers with lower expectations and aspirations. Shouldn't it be better with three more years of work behind it?"
Well, Chris obviously enjoyed the R, and we know you would too. Furthermore, after seeing the formal road test results, we really didn't have to do the other test we would have liked-lap times at Willow Springs. We know the R would run away and hide from the blown Cobra at a road-racing track. That's because the two cars are close on power, but the R has the chassis cajones to put more braking, cornering, and horsepower to the ground.
And if it was any other way, something would be terribly wrong. The R was built for the track; the '03 Cobra was not.
Drive home from a track test, however, and unless you flip your thumb, fore, and little finger out at every social interaction, you'll wish you were in SVT's major freeway missile soaking up the cool air and hot tunes, still with all that power waiting in the wings.
Eventually SVT will deliver a new Cobra and Cobra R based on the all-new S197 Mustang platform. If we're reading our engineers correctly, we might see something naturally aspirated such as the then-old R model 5.4 in both machines, and-as with this pair-they ought to be something special.