The Ford Mustang Cobra Jet 1400, the company's all-electric take on the Cobra Jet dragster, is now the world's fastest full-bodied electric car down the quarter-mile. The record was set by funny car driver Bob Tasca III, the grandson of legendary drag racer Bob Tasca, at Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio following an 8.12-second run.
The benchmark is the result of several improvements Ford made to the electric dragster since it took it to the drag strip for the first time in 2020. Tasca, who set an 8.27-second benchmark last fall, improved his ET with an 8.26-second run at 167 mph early in the event. He then returned to the starting line and ran a significantly better sprint that stopped the clock at an impressive 8.12 seconds, to go with a trap speed of 171.97 mph.
Tasca's run is the world's fastest for full-bodied electric cars. Following the record-setting sprint, Bob took to Twitter and threw down the gauntlet to Elon Musk, whose company recently launched the Tesla Model S Plaid. The all-electric production car covers the quarter-mile in as low as 9.25 seconds.
Now around a half-second quicker than last year, the Mustang Cobra Jet is only a half-second off the fastest quarter-mile run for electric cars of any kind. This record belongs to Steve Huff, who record a 7.52-second ET in an all-electric dragster in May 2020. He also became the first racer to hit 200 mph in an electric vehicle.
Will Bob Tasca and the Cobra Jet break Huff's record too? It's a difficult task and it might take a while for them to get there, but the pair will start hitting seven-second runs soon.
As a brief reminder, the Mustang Cobra Jet 1400 draws juice from a pair of dual-stack motors built by Cascadia Motion. Set to operate at 800 volts and at up to 700 amps, the motors were initially rated at around 1,400 horsepower. New improvements made by Ford Performance raised the output to more than 1,500 horses. That's twice as much as a supercharged Shelby GT500.
Check out Bob Tasca's record-setting run in the video below.
Ask Ciprian about cars and he'll reveal an obsession with classics and an annoyance with modern design cues. Read his articles and you'll understand why his ideal SUV is the 1969 Chevrolet K5 Blazer. Full profile
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