You can find Mustangs on Craigslist all day long. Fox, SN95, New Edge, S197, all of them, and there are plenty from which to choose. However, you don’t expect to see a Cobra R on the site, but here you go.
This one here from the Chicago area is of the ’95 Cobra R variety. Evidently, the current owner is moving, and must sell the factory beast before his relocation. The ad states the car has just 147 miles on the odometer, and is still “in the factory wrap with all the original stickers and markings on it.” The car is number 40 of the 250 Cobra Rs built in 1995, and when you buy the car, you will receive all the original documentation to go along with it, along with magazine articles of the day touting the car’s performance prowess.
Supposedly, the car is all original, except for the battery. For only having 147 miles on it, that kind of originality is expected. However, the ad also states the new buyer will have to replace the car’s fuel bladder. The fuel bladder has likely decayed/rotted over the last two decades. For this reason, we’re skeptical on whether or not the car actually runs. It doesn’t state anything in the ad that says the car runs great, or anything to that effect. It just says it is for local pick-up, or the new buyer must arrange shipping.
Regardless, the $53,900 asking price is steep. Is a 20-year old Mustang worth that kind of money? Will the Cobra Rs ever bring the money and equal the status of an original Shelby Mustang, Boss 302, Boss 351, or Boss 429? The future will be the only way to know if the latest crop of Cobra Rs will ever reach the same financial success of their older brethren.
This much we know, in 1995, the Cobra R’s 300 hp 351 Windsor was the best thing since sliced bread. And with just 250 examples built, and the necessity of having an active SCCA license in order to buy one, that kept many of us from being able to put one in our garage. Well, that and the asking price.
If the years since have been kind to those of us who couldn’t have one new in 1995, 2015 just might be the year we make up for lost time.