20 Years Later - This 2000 SVT Cobra R is Still Highly Desirable - And Available
I may be telling my age a bit here, but the first Mustang I really remember lusting for was the 2000 SVT Cobra R. I spent countless hours pouring over the pages of Motor Trend, Car & Driver, Road & Track, etc. just to absorb every tidbit of information possible about the beastliest of all Modern Mustangs. Friends and family just didn't understand. How could a Mustang with no radio or air conditioning cost over $50,000? We all now know the answer to that.
This interior screams "I'm all about business".
The 2000 was the last Pony Car to carry the R designation for well over a decade. What it lacking in creature comforts it more than made up for in performance and attitude. SVT Cobra Rs typically came in a single color and configuration. For 2000 that meant red with a massive wing, stripped interior, and a drivetrain that gets any blue blooded Ford fan's heart pumping. Beneath the prodigiously bulging hood lived a unique 5.4L DOHC V8 backed up by a Tremec T-56 6-Speed manual transmission. At 385HP it delivered levels of performance its domestic competitors had no hope of matching.
One of the defining features of the Cobra R is it's hulking 5.4L V8. Just look at that alternator pulley.
What the 2000 Cobra R bought to the table in guile and performance was only outpaced by its scarcity. Officially, only 300 examples were produced (we're not counting pre-production and test cars). Over the years quite a few have been modified and raced extensively. Another group were stored away still wrapped in shipping plastic as an investment or museum piece. Not many lived a life of daily driver duty. However, one that is somewhere between doesn't come up all that often.
The styling may have been controversial, but the effects of the the R's wing were undeniable.
Recently, friend of the site and car dealer extraordinaire Morgan Eldridge of Naples Auto Collection let me know that he had a very special Ford gracing his showroom floor. It happened to be a extremely clean 2000 Cobra R with just enough miles on it to keep you from feeling guilty about taking it for a Sunday drive. At just over 4,200 miles on the odometer it appears that the previous owner actually got to enjoy the car a bit, which I consider a good thing. I don't have space for garage art to just hang around.
This front-end just looks angry. That hood was a popular mod at the time for standard Cobras and Mustangs.
However, owning of the rarest and most uniquely badass modern Mustangs is a different story. Unfortunately for me, I don't have the reasonable asking price of ~$55,000 burning a hole in my pocket. But it you happen to have the scratch on hand, head over to Naples Auto's website to check out all the car's details and a ton more pics. I'm here to tell you that this car looks cherry. The Recaro seats look like they've barely been sat in, and the engine bay is clean enough to eat off of.
This was the competition's standard view of the 2000 SVT Cobra R.
Naples Auto Collection - 2000 SVT Cobra R Mustang
These cloth Recaro seats were a hot item back in the day. I have a tricked out leather set in my Lightning.
The marked the first time a Ford Mustang came factory equipped with a 6-Speed Manual Transmission.
It's a common misconception, but due to production costs all 2000 Cobra Rs came equipped with power windows. It would have been prohibitively expensive to produce them with manual cranks.
I wouldn't ticking off a few more miles on this one.
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