ISSUU - East County Observer 02.2.12 by The Observer Group Inc.
East County Observer 02.2.12
East County Observer 02.2.12
East County Observer 02.2.121980 Ford Mustang Cobra – Review – Car and Driver
Photography By AL SATTERWHITE
Archived Instrumented Test
Now that everybody's had a full year to get to know the new kid on the performance block, it's time to dig up answers to a few burning questions. Such as, is this Ford Mustang the shape of performance things to come? And if so, do we like what the future has in store?
You readers certainly wasted no time welcoming this Mustang to the fold by voting it the most significant new domestic car for 1979. The buying public seconded the motion by ordering more
than Ford could possibly build. By summer, we had a pretty good idea why. The Capri held its own against the best competition America, Europe, and Japan had to offer in our "Fuel-Crisis Fun" comparison in July, and the exact same car racked up a strong second place in this month's "Best-Handling American Car" standoff. So by all current estimates, the Mustang/Capri is about the best thing that's happened to American performance since overhead valves.
But does it have true staying power, or was the Mustang just a first-year flash in the pan, a lucky strike on Ford's part? The best way to find out is to take an early peek at what 1980 has in store, which is exactly why we tested this Mustang Cobra before the paint was dry on new-model prototypes.
One thing is sure: Ford planners and product engineers didn't rock back on their executive chairs and leave well enough alone. The Mustang and Capri have been tweaked and twiddled with from top to bottom. You won't have any trouble recognizing 1980 versions, but there are plenty of minor adjustments to fret over and cheer or complain about as you see fit.
First the bad news: the big motor's gone. We say "big" with tongue firmly planted in cheek, because 1979's 302-cubic-inch V-8 sucking life through a two-barrel straw was hardly what you'd call muscle-bound. Nevertheless, this year's plan is a smaller cylinder bore and less displacement to wring one more mile out of every precious gallon of gas. The new, 255-cubic-inch (4180cc) V-8 also trims 25 pounds off front-end weight. What this costs you is roughly ten horsepower compared with the 302 V-8's 140 net hp output. Ford claims the change brings a fuel-economy improvement of 1.2 mpg.
That's fair enough, given the pressures of the day, but there are other losses a little harder to justify to the Mustang's performance public. The V-6 was scrapped mid-year. Even though it offered the best power-to-weight balance of all the engine choices, Ford of Germany couldn't supply sufficient V-6s to justify an emissions certification. We've driven a car with the V-6's replacement (a 200-cubic-inch in-line six), and we found it a real locomotive for low-end torque, a threshing machine if you push it past 4000 rpm.
Right about here we'd suggest you forget about all engines but the new V-8 in the Mustang and be done with this road test, but it's not quite that easy. A four-speed transmission will not be bolted to the V-8 in the Mustang for '80, so it's impossible to have your torque and use it too. What Ford giveth, Ford also taketh away. Which brings us to the four-bangers, exactly what this company had in mind in the first place. The Better Idea fleet will deliver 20 mpg for 1980, and the Mustang/Capri must do its share, whether we're ready for utmost efficiency or not.
As we're gently backed into this corner, you might as well cancel the normally aspirated four as a way out. It's strong for its size, but it's just to small to pull around 3000 pounds with any show of enthusiasm.
So, assuming you're a red-blooded car crazy who shifts for himself, enjoys an occasional venture into the upper reaches of engine rpm, and expects his Mustang to click heels in response to a snap of the reins, your choices are limited. To one. The only engine from Ford that comes even close to delivering on last year's performance promise is . . . pause for short trumpet fanfare, please . . . the turbo 2.3.
Whether you like life with turbochargers or not, you might as well get used to it. These little pinwheels will soon be pumping up all the blood pressure there is left in cars. It's already happened here: the 2.3 turbo is the only way to buy a Mustang in 1980 with heart.
The hardest future shock to face is that this car isn't fast. Our test car huffed and puffed but couldn't break the ten-second barrier in zero-to-sixty times. It did manage to crank up 80 mph in the quarter-mile, but turbo lag along the way stretched the process out to a rather dull 18.2 seconds.
This should show you there is power under the hood, but you need way more than a quarter-mile's worth of patience to let it out. Ford's turbo is tuned for high-rpm boost. At low speeds, it suffers from the usual small-displacement—big-car syndrome we're all familiar with: it feels as if a millstone's been lashed to the roof. To throw off the ballast, you have to keep your right shoe locked to the floorboard so both the turbocharger and the engine have time to spin up plenty of rpm. With three grand on the tach, things start to happen—at first softly, then more forcefully as the little motor swells into a medium - sized one. Once you're on boost, the thrill lasts right up to the 6200-rpm redline, and if you keep the revs up and hurry your shifts, you can move about quickly in a turbo Mustang. There's a Symphony of the Devil soundtrack from under the hood loud enough to drown out 60 watts' worth of hard rock, but the 1980-edition turbo motor does produce horsepower proportional to all this racket.
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