(first posted at ttac in 2010 and here on 2/10/2012) Powered By Ford. There’s something special about those words, something iconic, something that evokes nightmares of an uniquely American scope, from our first family cross-country trips in a 1954 Ford that perpetually overheated and stalled from vapor lock (when it actually started) to the last one, Mother’s craptastic 1981 Escort (replaced by a Civic) that could barely do seventy wheezing unsteadily along the rain-soaked I-70 straight. Powered by Ford. It’s the peeling logo hastily slapped onto the valve covers of this five-liter Mustang II, but you won’t need to raise the hood to understand what it means. The first time this pathetic lump of an engine tries to suck air through its tiny two-barrel carburetor and wheezes its feeble exhaust through its soda-straw sized tailpipe, it will be more than crystal clear. (an explanation of my specific choice of these words follows)
My apologies to Jack Baruth (and it’s not the first time I’ve stolen some of his words). But his stirring words of worship at the altar of Ford compels me to release the anti-Ford held safely thus far in the digital files, and unleash its full 122 horsepower V8 fury upon his Mustang love poem. Nature seeks a balance, and for every heroic blue oval exploit at Le Mans in 1967 and Topanga Canyon Road in 2010, there is a 1971 LTD or this 1976 Mustang Cobra II to offset the glory.
The simple truth is that the Mustang II was a pathetic little toad. Obviously, it couldn’t have been much worse than its predecessor, that hideously oversized barge of a draft-horse car, the ’71-’73 ‘Stang. Or could it? One wants desperately to give Lee Iacocca credit for trying to do the right thing: dramatically downsize the Mustang to make it competitive with the Euro style “super-coupes” that were the hot thing after the pony car market collapsed under the weight of its wretched excess.
So the target competition for the Mustang II were the Toyota Celica, Opel Manta, and Ford’s own European import, the Capri (sold by Mercury). Therein lies the sum and substance of Ford’s enormous mistake with the Mustang II, the same one that GM and Ford repeated endlessly until they were finally pounded into submission. Instead of just building the highly competent Capri as the Mustang II, or in the case of GM, the Manta/Opel 1900, instead of the Vega, they threw themselves repeatedly on the sword of hubris: we can do it better in Detroit, even small sporty and economy cars, something the Europeans had been building and perfecting for decades.
GM’s Vega was the first to go down this path, if we generously give the Corvair a pass. The Opel 1900/Manta was a delightful-handling and well designed car, and with a tiny fraction of the money wasted on the Vega’s development, it could have been made truly superb. Ford’s Pinto was only marginally better than the Vega because it didn’t blow up or rust quite so instantaneously, but its silly low, short and wide and cramped body were retrograde from the perfectly practical English Ford Cortina that donated much of its guts for it. We know what Americans want in a small car…
That was 1971. That was also the year Mercury started selling the Capri here. Surprisingly, or not, it became a genuine hit, and at its peak, was the number two selling import in the land after the VW Beetle. Reviews praised it: (R/T) “a very attractive sporting car. It’s solid as a Mercedes, still compact and light in the context of 1974 barrier busters, fast, reasonably economical of fuel, precise-handling, and quick-stopping: its engine and drivetrain are both sporty and refined.” Apparently not good enough for Lido; he had wrought a true miracle turning the Falcon into the original Mustang, so why not do the same thing with the Pinto? Why not indeed! Unlike lightning, hubris always strikes after someone’s first success, deserved or not.
A reworked front end and some new longer rear springs were designed to quiet down the Pinto’s notorious trashy interior noise levels and general structural inefficiencies ( the whole car rattles and rustles like a burlap bag full of tin cups. Self destruction seems only moments away. C/D 1971). Lee wanted the Mustang II to have a touch of luxury to it, especially in the padded-top Ghia series; a sort of mini-T Bird. So, yes, let’s put lots of cushy rubber and soft springs in the suspension to give it a nice ride on the freeway.
But somehow, all that sound deadening and whatever else the Ford boys did to transform the Pinto into the Mustang II must have weighed a lot; well, lead is a terrific sound barrier. The unfortunate result was that the Mustang II weighed more than the original Mustang, despite the fact that its wheelbase was now a full foot shorter and it sported a four cylinder engine. And completely lost the proper proportions of the original. With its absurd front and rear overhang and 13″ tires, the Cobra II looks like a malformed cheap toy car. But Powered By Ford was stamped or glued to the new 2.3 liter OHC four, a rather noisy and thrashy lump that bravely soldiered on for decades, and actually got a bit better with time. Generating all of eighty-eight horsepower, Ford’s huge investment in racing engines during the sixties was finally paying a dividend.
If the four wasn’t quite recreating the Le Mans Mulsanne straight experience adequately, the Cologne V6 was the only option for more go in 1974, the II’s first year. C/D tested the new Mach 1 version with the 105 hp 2.8 six, and noted right off the bat that it was saddled with too much weight: “Our test car weighed over 3100 lbs…(the V-6 Capri we tested in 1972 weighed slightly under 2400 lbs)…the (Mustang’s) engine is more notable for its smoothness than any feel of power”. The quarter mile took over eighteen seconds (@74 mph), and zero to sixty took over twelve seconds. Ouch. But it probably had a better ride than the Capri. Oh, did it ever:
“As the Mustang II Mach I (with the optional “competition” suspension) approaches its cornering limits, the front end transmits the fact that it definitely is plowing…enthusiasts are going to be disappointed..excessive body lean was present in all handling tests…” Since the Mustang II plowed and handled like crap with the light little German V6 under the hood, it doesn’t take much of an imagination to speculate what it handled like when Ford finally shoehorned the 302 V8 into it for 1975, for all the wrong reasons. And the fact that it was still riding on 13″ wheels didn’t help any either.
Before we get on to the Cobra II, let’s note that C/D felt that the new four speed transmission that was developed in the US specifically for it was “not as smooth shifting as the current Pinto 4-speed” (sourced from Europe). And the fact that it was given the Pinto’s brakes without change wasn’t any too inspiring either: “difficult to maintain precise directional stability during hard stops”. C/D sums the Mach1 up this way: “its acceleration and performance don’t match expectations. Much of that is due to weight and some to emission standards, but neither of these factors justify the car’s flaccid handling”.
Given that Ford had to do some fairly extensive work on the Mustang II’s front end to accommodate the V8 implant, it’s obvious that they never planned on that outcome when the car was developed. And given that the 302 put out a mere 122 hp in 1975, one wonders why go to all the trouble, given the dramatic increase in front end weight it caused. Ford should have spent money on its turbo-four program a few years earlier. Or found a way to federalize the DOHC and fuel injection engines it used in Europe. But the American legacy of Ford was built around V8s, and what’s a Mustang without one: Powered By (genuine US) Ford.
Now we can finally speak our vile words about the actual Cobra II. Please note that this is the very first automobile to carry that august name since the original. As thus, it was one of the most disastrous defilements of equity in a name, one that was a true legend. That it was put on such a ridiculous pretender of a car, a Pinto (barely) in disguise, is almost mind boggling. Anything positive anyone can say about the Mustang II program is instantly offset by this cruel joke made by Lido and his not-so Whiz Kids.
Unbelievably, it only got worse with the King Cobra version a couple years later. It actually manages to surpass all the bad and stale stereotypes associated with its era. A true poster boy of wretched excess nothingness. A Cobra that couldn’t get it up.
As it turned out, genuine V8 performance in an excellently handling coupe was still in demand, and very much available, in the form of the Camaro Z-28. And at a price that put the Mustang II Mach I and Cobra II to infinite shame. In the very same issue of C/D is a test of the 1973 Camaro Z-28 with the slightly detuned but still very satisfying 350 V8 that churned out 245 hp, exactly double (plus one) of the Mustang’s V8. And the Z 28 cracked off the dash to sixty in 6.7 seconds, almost exactly one half (!) of the Mustang Mach I’s time. And ran a 15 second quarter at 95 mph. And handled and steered most properly indeed.
C/D summed up the Z28 this way: “Because few cars at any price offer the refinement in going, stopping, and turning abilities. And that refinement is housed in one of the most handsome forms ever to roll out of Detroit. But the real clincher is price: the latest Z-28 is a blue chip investment.”
The comparison of their respective proportions tells the sad tale.
It wouldn’t have been that hard to fix either: some more wheelbase in the front, and proper-sized wheels and tires. We made those fixes here.
Here’s the shocker: the Z-28, equipped with the potent V8 and four speed, stickered at $4066 ($19k adjusted). The 1975 Mustang II Mach I with the V6 listed at $4188; how much more the V8 cost is a guess. Half the horsepower, twice as long to sixty, miserable handling, in a ridiculous and mal-proportioned body with a yard too much front overhang. And if that comparison is just a wee bit too apples/oranges, a base 1975 Mustang II (four cylinder) hatch cost $3818, and a base 1975 V8 Camaro coupe cost $3685. Did the Mustang II sell? Sure. What’s the line about a sucker being born every minute? And now I’ve run out of time before I could even get started on the Mustang II’s build quality. Let’s just say Ford had quite a bit of subtraction ahead of them before they could even claim that Quality Was Job #1, let alone back it up.
There’s a good reason or two why the Camaro rated a “GM’s Greatest Hits” designation at CC (here’s the full gushing writeup), and this Mustang II earns Ford a Deadly Sin; Powered By Ford indeed.
Related: CC Builds a Better Mustang II
I can (just) barely accept that Ford felt they could get away with marketing a performance car based on the Pinto. What I will always find reprehensible is that some poo-head thought that Ford should market a car with the (near?) legendary name of Cobra…..powered by a 4 cylinder engine breathing through a single, one barrel carburetor. It was bad enough that the Mach I had only a V6 it’s 1st year, but the Cobra should have been V8 only.
The 70’s were my breakout years, and I try to forget how awful some of the cars were. Makes me appreciate the jelly bean 200k mile cars of today, but still crave the stylish (yet unreliable) cars of the 60’s. Traveling the time stream is difficult , and, man it’s difficult to get a good 4-door hardtop today!
Count me as another who dislikes the Mustang II, latter-day apologists notwithstanding. In the late ’70s, I used to eat Mustang II Cobras for breakfast with my stock ’75 Duster 360 (mine was baby blue with a white top).
I guess I will have to jump in here and defend the Mustang II a bit. Yes, the Cobra II was a bit much, although my sister owned a new ’76 model and really loved it. Since I didn’t like the ’71-’73 models that I always said reminded me of a locomotive for some reason, I was encouraged when I first learned that Ford was going to downsize the Mustang. At first I kind of liked them. Heck, my first new car was a ’75 coupe. After driving that thing for a couple of weeks I told my wife she could have the new car and i would go back to the ’67 Mustang that we didn’t trade in. Until I read this post I didn’t realize how heavy they were. No wonder the gas mileage was in the lower to mid twenties. When I traded it in on my ’79 Malibu I only lost about 5 mpg to the Chevy V8.
My defense of these kind of involves their weight. We bought a Mustang II for our two teenage girls to drive in the late nineties. That was one rugged little car. It took a couple of real hard hits by other drivers really well and I think kept the girls safer than a couple of other cars that we considered. We got 5 good years out of that little thing and then passed it on to someone else.
I didn’t quite have the means to buy a new car in the summer of ’77, but that didn’t stop me for speculating if I did have the means what would I buy. I remember crossing Ford off the list pretty quickly. The only Fords I was the least bit interested in were the Mustang II Cobra and the LTD II with the Sport Appearance package. Some choice. The magazines were unkind to the Mustang II, and the performance figures were only average for the time. I figured careful option selection might make a decent car of the LTD II, but such a large and heavy car with an anemic 400 cube V-8 would likely be only marginally better than the Cobra. At least it looked better. I decided that a Formula 400 Firebird would have been my choice. Ended up buying a Dodge D-150 a few years later.
I like the hatch a lot. but prefer the broughamy Ghia version.
Gotta learn to crawl before you can walk. Sure Ford thought it could do better by coming out with the Mustang II rather than using the Capri platform. Ford pretty much got the dimensions of the Mustang II correct by being smaller and lighter. Although the use of Cobra was somewhat presumptuous.
The hard part of matching a smog regulation choked engine to the car was the sticking point if you wanted a V8. As we have seen engineering an engine takes more lead time than redesigning a body. Not till the mid-80’s did Ford learn enough to make the 302 (5.0) decent again. Pretty much true for all manufacturers only some learned faster than others.
I don’t see this car as a deadly sin today. Yes, in 1974 it surely was after coming down from the high of big powerful V8 engines. Yet, given the virtue of hindsight I can’t be so hard on the car. Something had to start the evolution of the Mustang to a smaller car and then on the road to the Mustang of today. I would hate to think of what a Mustang of today would be like if Ford went down the Capri road instead.
i bought a 76 cobra 2 in 1986 when I was 17. black and gold. 4 speed 302. I redid motor and put 15 tires on it, cage in it, frame connectors, good shocks, new springs to make the care sit right. car was a beast at the time. I would race anyone and rarely lost. thing was fast on back roads. could lose anyone on a windy back road. then had body restored in 1990. I lost interest and sits in my shop. never seen rain since 1990. now im 51 years old, and my son is 15. he cant wait to play with it. with the right set up, these cars are a blast and look really good. cars today are so complicated. kids today do not even know how to drive a v8 4 speed. they just push some steering wheel buttons to go to race mode etc. my friend has a brand new z28 he takes to track. he pushes race mode, some sort of line lock button, holds gas to floor and car does everything else- what kind of racing is that. next thing they will be racing robot cars from on the other side of fence.
As zi said in an earlier reply “Its all about power to weight ratio.”. The ‘tang duece is around 2700 lbs. A healthy built 302, even a well built 2.8L will motivate that 2700lbs quite well and with the A.C. on. I live in AZ and A.C., one of the first things to go in the quest for H.P. is mandatory from May until early November, if you drive during daylight.
I’m a big block Chevy guy. My wife just bought a 77 Ghia with a 2.8 and I’m spinning wrenches on my first V6. I refuse to count the ODD FIRE 231 pontiac POS GM passed onto the unknowing masses in 77 in a firebird she owned.
I will get 200 hp to the rear end and she can go to the driving classes for “display of HP” tickets. Yeah, I had a few of those in CO. SPRINGS and that was the charge “display of H.P.” My last one I got religion.
A female cop pulled me over on Academy. When she approached my lightened 69 SS Camaro, well built sbc and an M22 her hand was on her pistol and she was literally shaking. “I’ve never seen a car take off like that.”
“Yeah, well..your driving a Ford.”
She failed to see the humor and it cost me $40 …
If you can get 1 to 1 to the rear wheels in a light car, you got yourself a car.
WELL THANK YOU FOR REMINDING ME OF JUST HOW BAD THE MUSTANG II COBRA REALLY WAS!!
NOW I CAN REMEMBER DRIVING TO THE POCONOS IN MY 76 STANG. OH I WAS SO COOL.
RIGHT UP TO THE POINT WHERE I WAS COMING TO THE PEAK OF A HILL AND THE CAR SLOWED DOWN TO NEARLY TO 5 MPH. FREAKED ME OUT I THOUGH I WAS GOING TO ROLL DOWN BACKWARDS.
I ALWAYS IMAGINED A NICE SMALL BLOCK TUNED UP TIGHT BUT IT NEVER MADE IT IN THE CAR.
I STILL BELIEVE SET UP NICLEY WITH A 302 AT ABOUT 300HP NEW FRONT END THIS CAR WOULD BE A LOT OF FUN.
A COBRA IS A COBRA FUN TO OWN JUST THE WRONG ERA.
IF ANYONE IS GETTING RID OF A COBRA SEND ME AN EMAIL. JGM2365@AOL.COM
JOHN
I owned a used 1976 Ford Cobra II in 1981. I do not recall, but was the gas tank in the rear of the car? Please refresh my memory. Thank you.
My very first car, purchased it used with 98K miles in 1981. Great with gas consumption since it was a V6 automatic.
I guess I couldn’t come much later to this party than now but I have some context to present having lived as a teenager and then young man through the era of muscle cars and then into gas crisis cars of the 70’s. I believe the writer has some great points that may be true, BUT. At only 21 years old newly married and struggling to make ends meet. My V8 4 speed 76 Cobra II was a fantastic joy to own and drive. Mind you at 16 my first car was a 1966 Saab Model 96 with a 3 cylinder water cooled 2 cycle motor. That at best was 40+ horsepower. I bought it for $169 as it was rear-ended and not drivable. I made a deal with Mantilia Motors that after making 3 payments in 5 weeks. They would tow that Saab to my house. Once I repaired it to road worthy I never had to walk to school again. Our parents could never afford to buy us cars for graduation but would co-sign a note and make us responsible young adults. My brother got a 69 Galaxie XL with a 429 Cobra Jet motor in 1972. Co-signed by my parents. Nearing graduation in May 1973 I happened upon a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T SE fresh on the lot at Stevens Ford in Milford, CT. I swung a doughnut in that old Saab and wheeled in to that lot next to that car. Truly a dream come true just fell in my lap. It was just traded in and untouched by their detailing crew. Price was a whopping $1890 bucks. I had $500 saved and it looked like it was going to be mine. Just like my brother my parents co-signed for me. WOW what a rocket, 440 magnum, 4 speed with a Hurst shifter. 375 horsepower. I left rubber everywhere. I raced it all I could race without getting caught. I started trade school 56 miles round trip from home in August 1973. The gas crises hit and I could not make enough money to pay for school and afford the cost of fuel. By June of 1974 I had to try and sell my dream car to a population that did not want gas guzzler cars. I finally sold it to a soon to be 16 year old without a drivers license and couldn’t drive a standard transmission. I got $1100 for the Charger and bought a 1967 Ford LTD with a 352 motor and 2 barrel carb. Married in Nov 1975 and with wedding reception money for a down payment we bought that Cobra II for $5200 including interest. I know its been a long read for anyone that last to this point, but from my prospective Ford made the right car for that time. Enough muscle to keep my age group very happy having known both putt putt cars and the extreme muscle of the late 1960’s. Like many of us that wish we still had our old cars. I would have as much joy if I could own either that Charger or that Cobra II again.
Of course I remember this car. It was awful. I had a girlfriend with one her parents bought her for college use, and she would have me drive it on trips.
At 6’3″, I was too tall. At 170 pounds, I was jammed against the transmission hump and the driver’s seat was just too small for me. My 5’8″ cousin fit his, but I was completely uncomfortable. Slow. This was not a Mustang. The handling was numb and the brakes were sloppy.
The Mustang II was a good girl’s car.
Never thought too highly of these But a number of years ago a real clean hatchback showed up in town. In a world of gray crossover SUV’s I thought it looked quite nice. In the late 70s I test drove a 305 4Speed Monza in a beautiful shade of British racing Green metallic, should have bought that one! Say what you will about the Monza but the hatchbacks where one gorgeous car!
Make mine a 1978 Falcon XC Cobra from Australia!! Its the ONLY Cobra from the 1970’s I have any interested in!
I had one about 2 years old, my first car. I thought I had the world by the nuts. You could burn the tires off at a whim, but when you tried to race some one, most of the time you would lose, sorry about that. What it needed was a lot of modification, which I didn’t do. Then I bought a 77 Trans Am with a 400 4 Speed. That got a whole lot of mods and all anyone ever saw of that was taillights. Including a 70 Coronet 440, 4 speed and a 78 L82 Corvette. Lots of others as well.
I concur the styling faux pas that the authors to blatantly puts forth, but in Cobra guise with the air dam, ducktail, and racing stripes..eh not so bad. With the addition of 15″ wheels and a little rake this can look pretty cool as a retro piece of 70’s Americana.
I don’t believe Lido was truly chasing the Europeans with this car, even if the marketing said as much. This car was built as cheap as possible to keep the Mustang alive. The Camaro, although better looking, did not escape similar forms of castration along the way. Anemic v6’s and tiny wheezing v8’s (need I bring up the 267 v8?) were also found under its hood. Along with lo-po gears and added weight.
Maybe I’m looking through rose colored glasses, but I don’t mind the Cobra II as much as I did in my younger years. And that “Powered by Ford” sticker that got slapped on valve covers?…it only took a few years later to when it was cast into them and it really meant something. Then the Camaro was eating dust.
I saw one of these a week or so ago in very nice shape. Probably a restoration, or maybe even a more basic model that’d been re-done as a “Cobra II.” It looked pretty good – almost enough to seem worth the effort, and certainly stood out against the sea of “blah-box” crossovers. I actually applaud guys who put some effort into red-headed step-child cars like the MII because it’s so hard to be original and stand out building up a classic Mustang. That’s part of the reason I’ve never considered buying a Mustang, even though there are plenty of pretty and interesting models to choose from, and why I bought a Fairlane for my first car. I wanted to stand out. Of course, a MII takes a lot more effort to add some bite, even to back up the already-limited bark.
Driving a red-headed step-child car is a great way to separate the guys who really love cars for what they are from the status-seekers: “Oh, wow, I love what you did to that MII” vs. “Too bad it’s just a MII, unlike my numbers-matching 64-1/2.” I think the Mustang fanatics are still likely to be kinder than, say, Porsche 911 die-hards; I’m hoping the 924 Turbo I’m fixing up gets people to walk right by a nice 911 once I’m done with it. So far it does get attention even though it’s very rough – people don’t recognize it and want to know what it is – so I can only imagine what it’ll be like once the body and paint is sorted.
Anyway, the MII was the right car for the time; trouble was, it wasn’t a Mustang. Speed was pretty much off the table: everyone was just trying to get their engines to run right after adding thermactors and EGR and catalytic converters, plus “performance” was a dirty word at that point. Ford would have had to throw piles of resources at an exotic engine (for the time at least) just to outrun a basic 289 1st gen Mustang; it would have been a mess of teething issues, but probably wouldn’t have mattered because most people didn’t care, and the ones that did wanted a big block and four-barrel carburetor.
So, enter the MII, with more refinement than its predecessor, and downsized as well (although “de-bloated” is – slightly – more accurate). It was the perfect replacement for the secretary’s straight-six/auto Mustang, but hopeless as a replacement for, say, a ’65 289 Hi-po fastback – let alone the big block monsters of the late sixties. I completely agree that it was a far less successful adaptation of the Pinto than the Falcon to Mustang. I bet Ford determined it wouldn’t sell if it weren’t significantly quieter and smoother than the Pinto. They were probably right, but they destroyed any sporting pretenses with what they created.
And so that brings me to why I whole-heartedly agree with the Cobra II being a deadly sin – and perhaps the deadliest of automotive sins. I think the MII already tread those waters, but where you might argue it wasn’t all wet, the Cobra II definitely dove in the deep end. That’s because there is no deadlier sin than slapping a vaunted name on a mediocre product that in no way resembles the original. The MII spliced a little Mustang DNA, a little Thunderbird DNA, but it was still more Pinto than anything else. It was already like Ford was trying to pass off a baloney sandwich as a juicy hamburger, but then they had to take it a step farther, slap on some garnish, and try to pass it off as “gourmet.”
That’s a common theme of the malaise era, and maybe it generated a few sales, but to anyone with aesthetic sense, it was simply murder. Ford did nothing for itself cramming a V8 into the MII, and it’s little consolation that even they realized calling a car with a V6 the “Cobra II” was a bit much. They could have built some major credibility just letting the Mustang go out to pasture until they could build a true successor, but instead, the marketing men ran wild and dug the malaise hole even deeper. “Keeping the name alive” is no excuse, not when the product is a zombie, when it takes a bunch of work under the hood to breathe some life into it. The Fox Mustangs were a big step up, but even those should have been held off until the worst of the wheezy, choked-down, mess-of-vacuum-lines V8s (like the 255) died off. Just imagine a world where the Mustang comes roaring back in ’84 after a ten-year break, knocking on 200 HP again with the 5.0 and SVO turbo instead of suffering for years as nothing more than a tarted-up poser out of the box – a deadly sin of an automobile, to be sure. To those who want one anyway, I won’t talk you down, but know that you’re playing with strange fire.
The reality, of course, is that the II was a GRAND SLAM for Ford. It nearly tripled sales compared to the porky, archaic lump it replaced. (Only the initial hype-driven 65-67 outsold the 74.) It was vastly superior to the early cars in every way except power.