We continue our two part coverage of the big Mustang 50th Anniversary celebration in Las Vegas. Keep an eye our look at the Charlotte celebration tomorrow.
One of my favorite show entries was the very rare and rarely seen 1965 Ford Mustang Station Wagon. According to the automaker, Ford commissioned an outside source to build a prototype Mustang estate in the early 1960s. The resulting Mustang wagon never caught on and wasn’t brought to market and was never produced beyond a few prototypes, . it’s still a bizarre car to behold.
The wagon on display in Vegas was refit with a bestial 429 cc big-block V8. It hardly comes stock now that the owner added air conditioning, modern wheels and tires much larger than standard issue.
60s and 70s Classics
Moving forward in time the 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 maybe not have been the prettiest Mustang ever built as its longer wheel base moves away from the original 1965 lines — but the literature on this car tells a great story. It was found “in a horse corral in Nevada back in 2005.” The owner grabbed it and team with an interior expert to get the car rebuilt and on the show circuit in less than three years.
Moving into the 1970s, the 428 Mustang Cobra Jet on display wasn’t standing pat. This standard 428-cc V8 adds a huge supercharger and two four-barrel carbs. While it was on display at the show, the owners plans on trotting the Cobra out onto the national drag race circuit.
The EXP 500 Mustang at the show lives out of time as it’s been heavily enhanced by Shelby himself. According to Ford’s records, Shelby experimented heavily on the car, replacing and upgrading performance parts until he had just the right mix. He replaced the 390 V8 with a 428 big block V8 and topped it with a fuel-injection system. Shelby removed the straight rear axle suspension and replaced it with an independent rig — something Ford itself wouldn’t do with the production Mustangs until just recently.
Related: Part 1: Mustang 50th Anniversary Rolls to Vegas
Moving into the Modern Classics
A 1993 Ford Mustang Cobra at the gathering came from Ford itself and was (according to its documentation) “the first Mustang tuned by Ford’s Special Vehicle Team.” Ford only built the 1993 Cobra for a year, but the car was an impressive piece of kit while in construction. The SVT installed higher-flow cylinder heads, a new camshaft and a revised fuel-injection system to go with the standard 5.0 liter, V8 to create 235 horsepower. By reducing weight in 1990s style, the SVT improved the Cobra’s acceleration and handling, foreign car that could do a quarter mile in just over 14 second.
And SVT worked over every part of the Cobra to make it a more responsive and durable Mustang. All this would help it run through the quarter-mile in just 14.3 seconds.
Right beside the standard Cobra stood the much rarer Cobra R model. Only 107 models were built, and essentially all were for hardcore track day driving, essentially expensive toys for Mustang lovers. The Cobra R came with larger brakes, upgraded shocks and 17” wheels.
While the late 1980s and early 1990s were not an era that produced the most attractive Mustangs, but the 1992 Ford Mustang SSP-CHP on display was easily one of the most powerful. The 5.0 liter police pursuit vehicle could catch pretty much everything else on the road, including the supposedly quicker foreign makes that can’t throw parties as entertaining as the 50th Anniversary Mustang Bash in Las Vegas.
The 1992 Ford Mustang SSP-CHP was absolutely top shelf and a prime wish list item for every highway bound police, sheriff’s department and state patrol in the 1990s. It’s still one of the most revered cop cars of all time — and Ford deserves credit assigning it a prime slogan for the car: “This Ford chases Porsches for a living.”
Finally, much like its 1993 version above, the 2000 Ford Mustang Cobra R was always intended to be the model’s top of the line performance model for its day. Like all Cobra Mustangs, the 1993 version is essentially a track version a driver can drive home again — so it’s prepped with street legal racing specs and a big rear spoiler.
A 385 horsepower V8 served an appropriate six-speed manual transmission and independent rear suspension — once again getting away from that numb rear axel. As with most special Mustang editions, the Cobra R was a one-year-productions, making 300 before fading into the realm of reverence.
Then again, at the Las Vegas 50th Anniversary Celebration, there truly wasn’t a Mustang in the neighborhood that wasn’t treated with the affection and respect afforded to any car on Planet Earth for half a century.
