Truly amazing is that the R weighs 3,590 pounds-only 75 pounds less than the '03 Cobra according to the spec sheets, yet from behind the wheel you'd swear the R is several hundred pounds lighter. It's the steering precision, lighter clutch, firmer seating, faster chassis response, and noise combining to signal the R moves on command and not a quarter second later.
Some of this is center of gravity, too. Both the R and '03 Cobras use iron engine blocks, but the R is topped with a relatively light intake manifold, while the '03 wears a heavy blower and intercooler up high in the engine compartment. So while the overall weights are close, over the front axle the '03 wears its higher than the R.
Ride quality with the R is good. Clearly it's not as plush as the '03 with its charm-school manners, but it's not harsh either. Enthusiasts inside Ford SVT tuned the R's spring and shock rates, and they stopped just before things became rough. In other words, for a performance car, it's perfect.
Braking on the street is child's play for the R. It does squeal or groan on occasion, but the pedal effort is moderate and easy to modulate.
As for looks, the wing and splitter are somehow macho without being dumb kid stuff on this car-and who doesn't like red? It's also tough to quantify the truly limited-edition status of the R. As with a "regular" Cobra, enthusiasts know what this is when they see it, only more so.
Besides the racetrack, the R is also a star on open secondary roads. For a dedicated driving fan, it doesn't get any better. The R's dynamic excellence takes over and nothing else matters. The chassis is sharp and communicative, and the engine-oh, that 5.4. Well mannered when it should be, and a raging, shake-the-cage-bars animal when it counts, the R's 5.4 is the sharpest blade in the Ford drawer when it comes to throttle response, and its mid- to top-end thrust is the stuff of THX digital-surround-sound dreams. It's easily our favorite Ford V-8. Any more civilized and it would be dull; any more aggression would be vulgar.
Any conclusions about this pair of speedsters would be incomplete without a trip to the test track. We sweet-talked our buddies at Motor Trend into running this Cobra doublet through their standard road-test regime.
The factory stock '03 Cobra was supplied by Ford Public Affairs. It had 5,500 miles on the odometer, but maybe just 1,000 miles on a fresh engine. Press fleet cars lead a tough life but receive the best of care, after all.
The '00 Cobra R was sportingly supplied by noted So Cal performance enthusiast Jeff Childers. His robust collection includes one each of the three R models built-'93, '95, and '00-and this one had only 1,900 miles on the clock, all from open-tracking at Willow Springs. Imagine, the three-year-old, private-owner car had roughly a third of the mileage of the dedicated factory demonstrator. That was a first.
Modifications to Jeff's R were minimal. A set of Griggs Racing caster camber plates and a Kenny Brown upper strut tower brace are underhood. Out back, the stock Borla mufflers and side-exhausts had been replaced with Bassani's duplicate kit. Otherwise the R was original, right down to its tires. We don't think Jeff's car materially benefited from any of its changes, other than the camber plates would allow more aggressive alignment settings and thus improve skidpad and slalom performance. No one could remember what the alignment was on the R, however, and as the front end wasn't visibly cockeyed from excessive negative camber and the steering didn't have that characteristic "big camber" deadness to it, we concluded things were at least close to stock up front.
Motor Trend's senior road test editor, Chris Walton, did the driving, so we got-or more properly, had-to watch for once. We easily noted Chris working to launch the R at the dragstrip-the sticky BFGs and tight suspension would either bog or spin the rubber. In the slalom, the '03 made beautiful slides through the cones, while the R simply rolled a little and sliced undramatically, but faster, through the gates.
Better yet, here's what Chris had to say.
'00 Cobra R "It was a little difficult to hold the revs to 2,000 (it would oscillate between 1,800 and 2,300 rpm), but it turned out to be the best rpm for the track surface. Once the clutch engaged, all I needed to do was modulate the throttle and all that torque with the loud pedal-a task made that much easier with the roaring exhaust pipe a few inches away. Ah, that sound is music to a car-nut's ears. Wheelspin was highly controllable and the G-Force KD tires offered a great deal of feedback as well. I found that the 5.4 ran out of oomph above 6,000 rpm, so I short-shifted as the needle swept past that mark. This seemed to work well and was good enough to beat our previous acceleration numbers from late 1999."