Cobra Jet Ambush: Ford Shows Up at the 1968 Winternationals
Rated at 335 Horsepower. Ford Had a Sense of Humor.
Ford had a Mustang problem, and for once it had nothing to do with selling Mustangs. Those were leaving dealerships just fine. The trouble started when somebody drove one to a dragstrip and parked it beside the nastier hardware from Chevrolet, Plymouth and Dodge.
Ford had excellent race engines, experienced racers and Funny Cars capable of frightening small animals several counties away, but it still needed a production Mustang that could walk into Super Stock and make the fellow in the other lane reconsider his weekend plans.
By February 1968, Ford had an answer. It brought fifty of them.
The Answer Came From a Ford Dealer
Bob Tasca was not especially interested in being told that Ford could not build the Mustang he wanted. His Rhode Island dealership was deeply involved in Ford performance, and Tasca had been experimenting with combinations that started with the practical 428 short block and gave it the breathing ability the ordinary version lacked.
The idea made sense. Ford’s 427 was an excellent race engine, but excellent race engines tend to become less attractive when somebody asks the factory to build a pile of them at production-car prices. The 428 was easier to build, easier to live with and already sitting there waiting for somebody to make it less respectable.
Give it the right heads, induction and exhaust, and “practical” suddenly became considerably more interesting.
Ford noticed.
Then Hot Rod Started Making Noise
The pressure did not stay inside Ford. Hot Rod magazine publicly pushed the company to build a serious Mustang around the Tasca-style formula and encouraged readers to tell Ford exactly what they wanted.
Thousands did. Detroit manufacturers have always enjoyed saying they listen to customers; it becomes harder not to listen when the customers start sending their opinions directly to Henry Ford II.
Ford approved the package, and the 428 Cobra Jet was on its way.
The Horsepower Rating Was Adorable
The new engine used 428 cubic inches, serious cylinder heads, a four-barrel carburetor, improved exhaust manifolds and enough breathing capacity to turn the Mustang into something far less polite than the standard showroom version.
Ford rated it at 335 horsepower.
That number was useful for several reasons. Advertised horsepower could affect insurance, public perception and the calculations used to determine where a car landed in class racing. There was absolutely no prize for telling everybody how much power the thing could actually make.
So Ford printed 335 on the paperwork and let the timing clocks handle rebuttal.
Fifty Cars and Not Much Time
The first batch consisted of 50 specially prepared Cobra Jet Mustangs: Wimbledon White fastbacks with black interiors and four-speed transmissions. They were not burdened with much equipment intended to make a Mustang pleasant on the way to work.
The radio and heater disappeared, along with sound deadener, undercoating and other pounds that contributed more to comfort than elapsed time. If a part made the trip quieter without making it quicker, its prospects were poor.
Production reportedly began in December 1967, and the Winternationals opened in February. Ford was not leaving the competition much time to study the homework.
Then Ford Called the Drivers
The company did not build fifty new drag cars and hand the important ones to fellows who had just learned which pedal did what. Ford brought in experienced racers including Al Joniec, Gas Ronda and Hubert Platt.
Ronda was already racing Funny Cars by then, but Ford brought him back to his Super Stock roots for the introduction. The assignment was simple enough: make the new Mustang look good, win races and avoid showing the competition anything it did not need to know.
That last part became important almost immediately.
The Cars Were Too Fast to Be Helpful
The Cobra Jets were not merely competitive. According to Joniec’s later account, the Ford teams believed the cars were at least a second quicker than the existing class record.
In drag racing, a second is not an advantage. A second is a different zip code.
Showing the entire hand immediately would have been generous, and racers are rarely overcome by generosity when qualifying positions and class records are involved. The Ford teams began running only as hard as necessary: win the round, keep the rest in your pocket and avoid handing everybody else the instruction manual before eliminations were finished.
The Other Lane Kept Finding Another White Mustang
The strategy worked. The Cobra Jets kept advancing, with Joniec’s Rice-Holman Mustang and Hubert Platt’s car eventually meeting for SS/E class honors.
That alone made Ford’s weekend look fairly clever. A brand-new production combination had arrived at Pomona and put two examples of itself into the same class final before most racers had even figured out what was hiding under the white hoods.
Joniec beat Platt. Now he had Super Stock Eliminator to worry about.
Dave Wren Brought the Mopar
Waiting in the final was Dave Wren with a Max Wedge Plymouth, exactly the sort of established Chrysler machinery Ford had built the Cobra Jet to fight.
The Plymouth’s formula was proven. The Mustang was the new kid, and Ford had spent most of the weekend making sure nobody saw every card in its hand. There was no longer much reason to be shy.
Joniec won.
His Cobra Jet recorded a best of 11.49 seconds at more than 120 mph during the event. The new Mustang had arrived at Pomona as an unknown and left with the Super Stock Eliminator trophy.
For a product introduction, that was considerably better than balloons at the dealership.
Ford Had Just Bought a Lot of Free Advertising
A few months earlier, the Cobra Jet had essentially been a proposal. Ford had not spent years slowly building a reputation for the package; it built fifty cars, prepared them for one of the biggest drag races in the country and put experienced racers behind the wheels.
Then one of them won the whole Super Stock show.
Every magazine covering Pomona suddenly had something to write about. Ford racers knew which engine they wanted, Chevrolet and Mopar racers knew Ford had found something, and customers could walk into a dealership asking for a Cobra Jet Mustang by name.
Advertising departments spend enormous amounts of money trying to accomplish less.
That 335-Horsepower Number Wasn’t Aging Well
The official rating had served its purpose on the paperwork. Pomona had now supplied another measuring instrument. Joniec’s Mustang had run 11.49 seconds at more than 120 mph, and nobody needed a dynamometer to suspect that all 335 advertised horses had been having an unusually productive weekend.
Ford was hardly alone in this little exercise. Detroit had become remarkably modest when assigning printed horsepower figures to some of its nastiest engines, especially when insurance companies and racing classifications might be reading along.
Still, there was something wonderfully tidy about Ford saying 335 while the scoreboard said 11.49. Use whichever measuring instrument inspires more confidence.
The Ambush Worked Too Well to Stay Secret
There was no putting the Cobra Jet back in the bag after Pomona. The engine became one of Ford’s defining muscle-era performance packages, and Cobra Jet Mustangs soon became familiar sights around dragstrips.
But the reputation started with one very efficient weekend. Ford arrived at the 1968 Winternationals with fifty new Mustangs, experienced racers and a horsepower rating nobody was required to believe. The teams spent the early rounds trying not to show how much performance they had brought with them.
Then Al Joniec won Super Stock Eliminator, which made keeping the secret considerably more difficult.
Ford called it the Cobra Jet. Everybody else at Pomona got the introduction from the rear bumper.