Ford unveiled today the Mustang Cobra Jet 1400. An electric car specially developed for acceleration racing inheriting the prolific dragster saga “Mustang Cobra Jet”. This project is the result of a collaboration between Ford, MLe Racecars, Watson Engineering, AEM EV, and Cascadia. The goal was to transform the legendary sports car into an electric model to improve its performance on the track, as it should be capable of completing the quarter-mile in about 8 seconds.
Ford will release the Mustang Mach-E, a fully electric SUV with a Mustang-inspired aesthetic, later this year. However, the real Mustang (that is, the coupe/convertible) does not currently have a battery-powered version. However, Ford has already confirmed that in the short term it will launch a plug-in hybrid version, which is now in development.
Although Ford took advantage of the Las Vegas SEMA Show last year to present a first electric prototype based on the model (the brutal 900hp Mustang Lithium), it looks like the Cobra Jet will go a step further and be used as a testbed for the company. The vehicle will debut in a drag race later this year.
Ford describes the model as follows: “The battery-powered Mustang Cobra Jet 1400 prototype is specially designed and engineered to deliver over 1,400 hp and over 1,491 Nm of instantaneous torque to demonstrate the capabilities of a powertrain electric in one of the most demanding competition environments.”
Dave Pericak, Global Director, Ford Icons, says of the launch: “Ford has always used motorsports to demonstrate innovation. Electric powertrains bring us a whole new kind of performance, and the Cobra Jet 1400 is an example of pushing new technology to the absolute limit. We are excited to show what is possible in an exciting year as we also have the fully electric Mustang Mach-E joining the Mustang family.”
Mark Rushbrook, Global Director, Ford Performance Motorsports, adds: “This project was a challenge for all of us at Ford Performance, but a challenge that we were delighted to meet. We saw the Cobra Jet 1400 project as an opportunity to start developing electric motors for race cars, with which we already had a lot of experience, so we had performance benchmarks that we wanted to match and exceed. This has been a fantastic project, and we hope it will be the first of many.”