Here it goes. I spotted it on the I 15 north tonight Black Mustang Cobra 2K3. Yes it was a 2K3 ! For sure !. Ive been drooling for one of these. It had dealer plates. So I spot the wing, and lights... I pull up , drop it to 3rd, and gun it , let the Frankencar do its mating call..... I KNEW I was going to get roasted, but this is the car I lust after.... so I bait him to the point that he punches it and GOES ! It's my wife and I in the Max.. We go from a 70 MPH roll. I got Roasted, Smoked, Fryed, Spanked, YOU NAME IT ! I have never be obscenely smoked by any car this badly ! By the time I hit 110, he had at least 6 cars on me , if not more. His SC was loud ! I love that car ! I just wouldnt get it because I wanted a 4 door. Props to the Cobra ! You Mustang guys , like me can relate , the presence of suck power,, STOCK ! With just headers , exhaust and a mild cam, 11's are asking you to embrace them !

 

Its ok kloogy, you still had the guts to race it. You win some and you lose some, It's all good.

 

Bro, I knew I would lose. I just wanted to se if this beast was for real....it was. I would love to get a hold of one, and do some basic mods on it. I know with less than 10k worth of work I could beat a Porsche Twin Turbo. This beast needs to be unleashed ! .... Back to my cheesy max !

 

dude... get a towel and wipe yourself off.


the new cobra's are nice however..

 

If you had a towel, it would be wipping somewhere in the rectal area !

 

Even the old Cobra's are sweet, but the 2k3 damn! Even though I am anti musclecar guy I admit those cars are badass fo sho! Only one thing though, it might smoke the porsche TT with mods, but in the turns the Cobra would be owned!

 

I had a 96 svt cobra before, went mad fast. I can only imagine what the new s/c 4.6 goes like, not to mention having a decent rear suspension for the last year. This car is very modable, even for the twisties.

 

Yeah, it's fast but it's a Ford.

That means crappy looking interior and poor reliability overall.

Plus you'd be joining the legions of dorkballs driving Mustangs.

 

i disagree.. my buddy has a 2k2 Cobra and the interior is nice..

http://www.vbgod.com/

http://www.vbgod.com/MyCobra/

 

I have been lusting after the new Cobra as well. I walked out work yesterday and a brand new black 2K3 Cobra Convertable was parked there. It looks good except for the rather large gap between the wheel and the fender. Man I want one. Oh well.

 

They have QA issues already. My friend has one and he was just telling me this morning that he has this awful shake at 80mph. He said a lot of guys are having the same problem with their 2k3s as well.

I guess they took a class from Nissan...

It is still a really sweet car!

 

I had a 97 Cobra for over a year and it was the fastest car I ever owned. I had 4.10 gears, Flowmaster exhaust, H-Pipe, HAI, and a short throw shifter. I also put Nitto Drag Radials and 98' Cobra Wheels. All these mods may have cost me 5 grand. Not bad to make a $25,000 car a 13 second racer.

If you want a muscle car for short money nothing beats a 97-98 Cobra. They can be had for around 16k right now. The interior does suck but a set of corbeaus will help out alot.

 

I had a 98 Cobra until mid-June this year. Easliy the most fun car I have ever had. Easily the most power. (I tear up as I remember the exhaust note on startup in the morning <sigh>). However, I have never even started to regret getting the Max.

One thing that burns me a little though is to lump the Cobra into the "cheap Ford Mustang" pile. SVT does for their cars what no factory does for their special performance cars (even the ZO6 Corvette only gets about a 30HP gain right?), In 1998, the GT Mustang only generated 215 HP. The Cobra made 305 from roughly the same engine block. That is not to mention the seriously increased braking power (ever try stomping on the brakes at 100+ and feeling the car smoothly and effortlessy just STOP)suspension, steering...never mind I am sure that this will generate a few flames anyways... I just have a deep respect for performance cars that were born to be performance cars.

 

Kloogy, it has obviously been a long time since you have seen a Mustang engine. There are 4 cams in the Cobra, and headers take 14 labor hours to install, the 4.6 is 4 inches wider than a 460 BB Ford But actually, 5.0 Magazine, put on a cat back, K&N, x-pipe, slicks and skinnies, and ran a 11.95@116, and Muscle mustangs put on the Lightning pulley and a K&N and ran 12.02@117 on street tires. This new Cobra is a car that even I fear.....

 

Wow you actually lost in your Auto 2k2?

 

Doesn't the 2K3 Mustang use the same climate control unit as the original 1987 Stang?!?

While they've come along way, the Mustang's interior is FAR from the ergonomic superiority of most Japanese cars. (To be fair, German cars are just now starting to catch up) I've driven enough Mustangs working for Hertz to realize that if you're over 6' tall, you're gonna hate that car.

That said, the new Cobra ROCKS (performancewise, anyway)!! I can't stand Fords but the Cobra convertible and Lighting/HD F150 are ones that I would consider purchasing....as a third vehicle in my household. (Thinking to myself: Now if Ford could just contract Honda or Toyota to build these Mustangs, there'd be minimal quality issues........)

 

Haha.. yeah, I know it has 4 cams.. TYPO... I wworked on a header install on a 4.6 and you are RIGHT ! There are a pain in the A$$ ! But if you think thats bad, it took me about 6 hourse do a tune up on my LT1 Trans Am... The book lists 8 hours of labor for it.

I can only imagine what that beast is capable of.

As for you guys Lumping this car in with ALL FORDS, dont be ignorant. Thats like V8 guys calling you a ricer, and lumping you in with Civics. The SVT team has produced some extremely impressive cars in the last few years, but this new Cobra is a BEAUTY !

 

HEEEY!!! I drive a Mustang AND a 2k2 Max..... What does that make me??

If the feeling of cruising the rag top down and the sweet sound of an American v8 filling my ears makes me a dorkball... I'LL TAKE IT! (insert dork honk laugh here)....

 

<== Gladly accept the Dokr label , in exchange for a 2K3 Cobra..Watch closely as the DORK in the Cobra, rips you a new Rectal opening ...

 

How do you know Kloogy ,


Good race, you have some guts racing that dude, but guess what have you had a little spray in the trunk youd probably had the lead. If they dont come out with the SC as your waiting you can go Custom Turbo or get some spray and you can kill the new snakes and many fast cars.

 

Coming Soon for SURE !

 

Excellent reply, kloogy.

 

Or you could just spend 10k total and get a DSM to be that fast... Point is, they are two different classes of cars... and in the end 99.9% of people would rather the Porsche at the end of the day... The other 0.1% of people need a serious reality check

 

As I said before, the 03' Cobra is sweet performance wise. But like ALL FORDS it will have major quality issues. It's fast, and if I had the money for weekend car, I'd consider it, but never as a daily driver.

I'm pretty sure that Ford leads ALL other auto manufacturers in the number of vehicle recalls so far this year.

Also, I believe Ford scored the lowest of all American manufacturers in overall reliability and quality assessments (JD Power).

I've sat in Mustangs and testdriven the previous model Cobra.
The interior in the Mustang is pure cheese, and the Cobra is no different--poor material quality, poor fit and finish, poor ergonomics, and downright ugly to look at. Definitely NOT worthy of a $35,000 car. It has the same interior as the Mustang GT, with a few cosmetic differences.

My previous car, a 1998 Pontiac Grand Am GT, had better interior quality than the Mustang Cobra I testdrove before buying the Maxima.

 

OUCH!!!

 

Whatever helps you sleep at night.


You guys forget what the mission of the Mustang is, a quick, easily modified, reletively inexpensive car. Not a world class handler/performer like the Vette. It is still using the 1979 Fairmont chassis, I think it has done well with this platform. The good theing about the Mustang is, if you don't like how it came from the factory, there are about a gajillion companies that make replacement parts for it. Can't say that about the Batmobile (Grand Am)

 

those SVT's are sweet

 

390 hp, 6spd tranny and a factory installed supercharger, WOW, sounds so sweet. Reality check(NOOO), it's a FORD. The last GT I owned, a 1990 5.0, great bang for the buck, it was a FORD, made in the U.S.A., with good old American pride and technology, that is what was wrong with the car. I'm sure the older guys on this board(guys like myself in their thirties), grew up driving American cars(Camaros and Stangs). We also remember spending our weekends and paychecks working on the cars. They are also absolute garbage, trash I must say. When was the last time any of you owned an Amerian car for a couple of years and didn't have it rattling after 15-20K? 390 H.P, while that sounds great, where can you guys use it? I would say at the racetrack. Get serious, driving a $35K car you have to have a career where you make at least $60-80K+ to pay for it. Those who rush to sell their cars and buy a 2K3 Cobra will be crying when they have to deal with qality control issues on that American outhouse.

 

I don't know what you mean by that first comment, but my old Grand Am wasn't the "Batmobile". The '98 was the last of the previous bodystyle. I hate the new ones.

Back on topic. The 03' Cobra has a powerful engine, with the build quality of a pinto. This includes the poorly designed interior with it's low grade materials, an interior that hasn't changed in nearly a decade. That certainly won't entice me to spend $40,000 on one.

 

on that same note I am a very picky person but I thought the body style was going to change, I just picked up a Mag at the store and was very disappointed to see all that hyped up pic was B/S, the body style is still the same. It has a S/Cer like the lightning, but is it really worth $35,000 plus to own the car or would it be cheaper to buy a regular GT and install a Supercharger, besides they cant run more then 8LBs of boost!!!

Alot of torque and horsepower!!!I must give it to the american muscle but reliability and quality goes a long way!!and it doesnt have it!!!hell didnt Ford was the car Manufacturer they should have better enines then VTECH engines in hondas doesnt everyone agree with that!!!

 

Keep in mind your getting a 6 speed tranny and a independent rear suspension with the cobra that the gt doesnt have.

 

Mentioning ANY year Grand Am, with a Cobra in the same breath is ridiculous..

 

That's actually me!!! How do you like my tailight?

 

If you actually were able to afford one, I would gain respect for you... Have you bought a car yet ?

 

I'm still riding my Huffy mountain bike.

 

Must....resist....urge to.....flame.....

It's probably worth mentioning how important the Cobra was/is for Ford performance, and indeed performance enthusiasts of all brands. The 85 GT Mustang added some oomph in the 5.0, but in 93 the Cobra of that year put performance back under the hood and probably spawned the birth of such cars as the Z28 SS. Perhaps not in these circles, but in other circles these cars revolutionized the muscle car world, bring high-tech multi-valve/cam action to the mass public. The Cobra is not as refined as, say, a german offering, however it is undoubtedly 1) exclusive, and 2) a performer with heaps of potential.

My $0.02 worth. I've owned some nice cars, german, japanese, american, and would love to own a Cobra. Nice car.

(steps off soapbox)

 

What Ford did to the Cobra this year is amazing. Close to 400hp in a small affordable package. This will really get the Camaro vs Mustang thing going(if GM still offers it in the next few years). Ford decided to give everyone a great engine/tranny/suspension and maybe skimp a little on the enterior. If they up the quality of the rest of the car, Ford would have to price the car way higher than their target audience could afford.

I think SVT should be commended for developing an IRS when the competitors didn't. Did you Ford guys remember when Ford introduced that prototype front wishbone suspension? Ford make all the connection points BOLT on to the existing Mustang front end! Wow. Very sneaky of them. I think the IRS rears are being swapped into the older Mustangs already. You bet the Ford designers knew this would be happening and made sure they designed it as swap ready as they possibly could.

You guys also have to remember the Ford uses one of the most sophisticated ecu software in the business(from engine management to diagnostics)

You have to realize when you have 390hp showing you their rear end, what are you going to say? Well my interior is better??

 

In response to the perceived lack of quality of the American cars in general and the Fords specifically I have to respond. Of the last six new cars and trucks that we have owned none were in the shop more than my wife's 2002 Maxima. Twice for recalls, throttle stop, front suspension control arms, stereo speaker replacement and now the entire Bose head unit. This is after only 8500 miles since January of this year. My 1988 Mustang GT had 70,000 miles put on it in two years and ran 13.87 with only off-road exhaust and a K&N filter, over 600 drag strip passes with probably 100 ten pound bottles of NOS and it was never in the shop for anything. The 1990 LX 5.0 was nearly the same until some idiot in an S-10 pickup totaled it. The 1992 Taurus SHO had 90,000 miles when it was traded and needed to have one clutch replace, normal wear and tear. The 1996 Taurus SHO had zero problems. The 1999 Dodge Ram 1500 Quad Cab has had to have the catalytic converter replaced under warranty in 36,000 miles.

Now overall I have to agree that with the general public the domestics will probably not be as good as Japanese in quality. A lot of that has to do with the demographics of the clientele served. In my area an older more educated group drives most of the Maximas with the Mustangs being almost exclusively very young males that drive the crap out of them and only worry about maintenance when something goes wrong. At our local Nissan dealer (town of less than 20,000) there are five to ten Maximas in line to have the oil changed every day.

Don't get me wrong. There are not many, if any, four-door sport sedans in the Maxima's price range that I would have. It is a pretty decent car that performs well. It runs a little quicker than the 1996 SHO that we replaced with the Maxima, but does not have any more room and neither drives or handles any better either. Ford has nothing that we would have at this point and the Regal GS are really bad quality vehicles that perform well but have a history of poor resale values. A new Cobra will be in our future as soon as our children are a bit older.

That is my $.02 worth from my personal experience.

 

Dude, what crack are you smoking! The Europeans invented ergonomics. The rest of the world is playing catch up here, not just America. There are a few certinties in the automotive industry. Here are a few:

European cars are well built and have good ergonomics and interior materials.

Asian cars are nothing more than knock-offs ... name the last original asian car design ... I mean NEW. Prior to this decade, I would have to say the Datsun Z cars of the mid to late 70's. Everything else was a mere blurred photocopy of anything european or american.

American cars are fairly inexpensive, large cars historically with lots of power and a love for the V8. Sure there are build quality issues, but what do you expect from a cheap car. You can't buy a YUGO and expect a BMW.

I am a long time FORD owner (96 Thunderbird, 94 Escort, 99 Cougar, 96 Explorer) and truely believe that FORD has better interior and exterior design than their other domestic compition. Chrysler is coming on strong though since the infusion of Mercedes Benz. GM ... don't get me started. Best American car ever made, the C5 Vette and they make the cockpit look like the batmobile, complete with big platic ***** and tiered gauges ... BUTT UGLY!

I have owned 3 japanese cars in the past and like them equally as well as the FORDs. My wife's 89 Toyota Corolla ran like a champ (167K miles) until we traded it in on a 99 Protege (great bargain, good build, great ergonomics). Before that I had a 1990 Subaru Loyal and before that a 1988 Subaru GL10, both station wagons and both 4x4. I wouldn't count out owning a foreign car again and that will most likely be my next car due to the better materials and build quality, but to make a blanket statement about erogonics is just ignorent!

 

if europeans invented ergonomics, then the japanese took over and perfected it



i think that is a primary weakness of european cars......in general, their ergonomics are awful