The new Motortrend On Demand series Hard Cell is where we put extreme electric vehicles like the recently revealed Ford Mustang Cobra Jet 1400 prototype to the test, to see if they actually stack up outside of pretty simulation. And Hard Cell was there when the Cobra Jet 1400 first turned an electrified wheel in anger.
(Interested in seeing more EV Cobra? You can see theMustang Cobra Jet 1400 dragster in action onHard Cell, hosted by Tom “Wookie” Ford, starting Sunday,April 26,on the MotorTrend app. Subscribers can check out other episodes of the performance-EV-focused program right here—and if you’re not a subscriber yet, it’s just $1.00 per month right now. )
On the show, we aim to find out if wild claims like the 1,400 horsepower Ford Performance says the Cobra Jet 1400 makes in its press release actually have any bearing in reality; to get to the truth behind these seemingly exceptional EVs. And the one little slice of the gasoline-fueled world that causes the most controversy amongst traditional petrolheads? Motorsport. As in, whether or not electric motorsport will ever be a credible alternative to the smelly, noisy, fire-breathing brilliance of internal combustion competition cars
Of course, EV motorsport has been a thing for a while now, from Formula E, to hillclimb and sprint specials, to the TT Zero class at the Isle of Man TT. But on Hard Cell, we decided to play with some lesser-known eddys of the electric river. After a quick look at the rise of Formula E single seaters and the Jaguar iPace eTrophy support series, we took in 600-plus horsepower STARD electric RallyC
ross Ford Fiestas in Austria and the newly-electric-only Trophee Andros Elite Pro class in the Pyrenees. (To the uninitiated, those cars are spike-tired, AWD and four-wheel steering ice-racing hatchbacks.) And yes, they don’t so much race as perform full-contact sideways race ballet.
But what about a motorsport that has at least 50-percent of its soul wedged into the engine bay? What about a motorsport whose noise and flame-spitting, explosive engine violence is what people come to see? What about the old-school king of gas, drag racing?
This is where it all got a bit serious. After talking to some friends in the U.S. drag-racing scene, I heard about a “special EV project” involving a major manufacturer. A big player that was doing some experimental work with some friends of mine who happen to be the people to know if you want to motivate a drag car with volts. The friends were Jeff Lane and Pat McCue of MLe Race Cars. The big player? The one and only Ford Performance.
This was big news—Ford Performance were teaming up with the guys at the forefront of EV drag tech. The idea being to build a full-bodied, full-electric drag Mustang. One that would carry the legendary CobraJet name. Now, a CobraJet in its last iteration was an 1,100 horsepower, Whipple-supercharged 5.2-liter V-8 powered drag special. Skinny fronts, drag slicks, rollcage and full-on, tried’n’tested transmission. Pat and Jeff were charged with making not a spaceship, some next-gen concept, but a Mustang powered by batteries that the drag racing community could see, understand, and appreciate. Something more complex than it sounds. Thus, the Ford Mustang Cobrajet 1400 has essentially the same look, the same torque-converter, rear-end and transmission as the gas car—except the engine bay is filled with lightning.
It’s a clever, intuitive installation as well. In making the car as reminiscent of the gas-powered version as possible, there’s artistry in the creation. All the inverters and cabling are wired and wound to look like some strange version of a gas burning engine. Oddly, it looks a little like a rotary—albeit a stacked and steroidal one. It all sits neatly under the hood where an engine would, with the batteries inveigled wherever they would fit for decent weight distribution and a four E-motor setup. And yet it looks completely drag stock from the outside. Except this car announces itself with an angry whine instead of a combustion roar—and it makes some 1400 hp and up to 1,100 lb-ft of instant torque. Not a thing to be trifled with.
We saw the challenges faced with trying to wrangle a Mustang with much more power than grip, watched as old-school knowledge was brought to bear on new-school motivation. We saw a car that would spin its tires at any point on the quarter mile. A car that would deliver such crushing torque from zero rpm that managing the car’s launch became a quiet, frustrating obsession. But that’s what these testing times are for: to tune, to push, to find the limits and step over them, so that you know exactly where they lie.
These are people used to finding the gaps in their knowledge, mind you. The kind of grinding and impressive will that gets there in the end—gradually tweaking and incrementally-improving their way to success. We saw the CobraJet 1400 launch so hard that it pulled a 2-foot wheelie, slapped down and immediately did it again—and this is not a lightweight car. We saw it try to tear the tires off at half-track, wriggle and buck against Pat’s control. In the end, a simple puncture led to a situation where we weren’t able to drive it—and the subsequent global lockdown prevented our second opportunity.
And yet, after all that, at the end of two days of testing, we also witnessed something utterly remarkable. Something that no one there even thought possible. But in the best traditions of cliffhangers you’ll have to watch the show to find out what. -BY Tom ” Wookie” Ford
(Interested in seeing more EV Cobra? You can see theMustang Cobra Jet 1400 dragster in action onHard Cell, hosted by Tom “Wookie” Ford, starting Sunday,April 26,on the MotorTrend app. Subscribers can check out other episodes of the performance-EV-focused program right here—and if you’re not a subscriber yet, it’s just $1.00 per month right now. )
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