RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Being somewhat of a disciple of the old GM F-body Pony Cars, it takes a special kind of Mustang for me to garner it any kind of attention. Enter, the 2000 Mustang Cobra R - a very limited edition, essentially, street legal, racer-version of the, already limited edition, Cobra. With a garish, over-the-top, but functional appearence and a paint-scheme limited to "Pull Me Over" red, this is the one that seperated the men from the wannabe boy-racers and the pinky-ring set. Devoid of most creature comforts like; air conditioning, radio, backseat, and sound-deadening materials, this One Trick Pony had a built-in set of features that kept out the Rubes who had no business being seen in such a machine. Stuffed with a 385 (SAE) HP 5.4 liter V8 modified with Carrilio connecting rods, McLeod flywheel, K&N breathing appearel, and packing a Tremac 6-speed manual, this brute could hit 60 in the low 4's, trip the quarter mile lights in the mid-high 12's and push through the slalom cones at over 70 mph while pulling a full-G in the process ( that's Viper territory, folks! ). In numerous head to head battles, it routinely trounced the C-5 Corvette in just about all performance categories, which caused quite a bit of embaressment for the Bow-Tie crew. Alas, I never had the opportunity to get behind the wheel of one of these, as only 300 were made and they had to be divied out, by lottery, to 600 authorized Cobra dealers. The closest I ever came was taking my buddies '98 Cobra around the track at Waterford Hills, so I can only imagine what it must have been like to handle this much faster beast. The old timers probably won't give this car its due, because it doesn't have the emotional appeal of the classics, but make no mistake, the Cobra R set a standard for performance that no factory-built Mustang, before it or since, can lay claim to ( although it is widely assumed that the up-and-coming 2007 Shelby GT500 will probably raise the bar again to even more stratospheric heights )....