2003 Cobra Runs 8-Second Pass With Whipple, IRS, And A T-56

In 2003, Ford Motor Company released the New Edge Cobra with a new powerplant. The naturally aspirated setup that was seen in the 1999-2001 Cobra and 2002 outside of the United States was no longer available and its replacement was a supercharged 4.6-liter that meant business. A few months after its release the craze of making close to 500-wheel-horsepower became easily attainable. 

As much as I don’t like to think about it, that was two decades ago and many of these chassis’ have been severely altered from its factory settings. Solid rear axles taking the place of the independent rear suspension, superchargers being replaced with turbochargers, and the most tragic of all, automatics taking the transmission tunnel position where the original 6-speed T-56 resided. However, over these past few decades there have been a few loyal “Cobros” who have stuck to their roots and continued to chase down records using the conventional setup. One such person is Dan Watts. 

After three years of fighting with his combination and having mechanical failures, it finally paid off with an 8-second quarter-mile pass. Dan took his Whipple supercharged Cobra to the drag strip and rowed the gears of his faceplated T-56 to an 8.86 at 160 mph. This pass would make Watts’ car the only 2003-2004 Cobra to run an 8-second pass using a supercharger as a power adder, factory independent rear suspension, and a manual transmission. 

Twenty years have passed and the Terminator Cobra is still a fierce foe on the track and street. It’s great to see enthusiasts still pushing the chassis to its limits and further. We look forward to catching this yellow streak making more passes, hopefully with less stress along the way.

While breaking into the 8-second barrier was the end goal and proved on this slip, Watts also managed to cut a 1.346-second 60-foot on a different pass!