Original Owner One-of-One 1968 Mustang 428 Cobra Jet Sports Huge Three-Speed Surprise

Who is Roger Parlett? A retired Ford Motor Company engineer who was closely involved in the making of the mighty 428 cubic-inch Cobra Jet eight-cylinder motor that debuted mid-model year in 1968. So far, nothing special – many more were tied to the iconic powerplant.

However, Mr. Parlett is one of the very few – if not the only – original owners of the first CJs to come off the line. His car isn’t even a regular, everyday, normal Cobra Jet Mustang because his example was built before mass production began.

Late in 1967, Ford was going full steam ahead to finish a car that could keep up on the street with GM's Camaros, Firebirds, Chrysler's Road Runners, and Barracudas. The 390 cubic-inch V8 wasn’t muscle enough, and the race-derived 427 was much money (755 bucks in 1968 is around $6,800 today).

Bob Tasca in Rhode Island came up with the big idea of mating the bottom of an FE 428 short-block V8 with the high-flowing cylinder heads from the 427. Tasca Ford was a strong voice in the racing landscape of the sixties, and Ford paid attention.

By ‘attention,’ I mean the company immediately recognized the potential of the new engine and had 50 lightweight cars (the minimum number required to enlist the engine at the National Hot Rod Association-sanctioned events – drag racing).

In early 1968, six factory-backed Cobra Jets blew the doors off everyone else staged alongside them at the start line of the Winternationals. The engine became an instant hit and a street king strong enough to challenge the Hemi and GM’s mighty 427s.

Roger Parlett knew exactly what the engine could do – and what it needed to do even better – since he was assigned to the engine calibration and cooling task force put together for the Cobra Jet program. The goal was as straightforward as possible: a 13-second quarter-mile street package. What could be simpler? Engineers tweaked the engine to the max, then turned their attention to the rest of the Mustang and began slicing tenths of seconds by every means available.

With the power output riddle solved, the next challenge was to maximize power-to-weight ratios, and the easiest way to achieve that was to leave some of the Mustang out of the equation. Check the video below and look at the inside of the hood – it doesn’t look too familiar, does it? Those holes are for weight reduction, just as are the aluminum heads. Now sitting by the right-hand side fender, the battery was originally placed in the trunk for better weight distribution.

What we see in this video (filmed by Lou Costabile in the Western Suburbs of Chicago a few days ago) is one of the original prototypes used to test the cars in reparation for the drag racing debut at the eighth annual National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Winternationals. Between February 2 - 4, 1968, at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona, California, the six 428 Cobra Jets that participated completely stole the show and won instant acclaim.

Roger Parlett’s Mustang is unlike the rest of the initial fifty examples of the mighty 428 cubic-inch (seven-liter) Cobra Jet cars. His has an automatic transmission – Ford engineers discovered that the four-speed manual wasn’t as quick as the three-speed auto during an extensive drag race test. Apart from adding miles on the odometer, 440 yards at a time, this Mustang also served for aerodynamic and wheel hop testing.

The latter would explain the staggered shock absorbers, a more efficient Cobra Jet exhaust from the h-pipe back, and the ‘smog hardware delete’ option. After 3,016 miles of trials (4,854 kilometers), the car was relieved from its duties. Roger immediately placed an order to purchase the vehicle – and by an immense stroke of luck, he got it. Normally, test mules would be scrapped and not sold – that’s what happened to the other nine prototypes used for the Cobra Jet development.

The stunning Mustang burbling in the video has special brass tags on the radiator—with the test identification number V818-16 stamped on it—to attest to its uniqueness. After paying the 2,393 dollars for the ‘used’ Mustang—a new 428 Cobra Jet Mustang retailed for the base price of $3,600 when it was introduced –Roger went to his local dragstrip to stretch the car’s legs a bit.

As it turned out, everyone else noticed it very quickly – mostly because he wasn’t losing to anyone. The opening sentence of this article is a quote from one of Mr. Parlett’s most memorable drag races against a 440-armed Road Runner.

The Mopar and the Ford went cheek-to-jowl from the tree to the finish line – with the Cobra Jet inching ahead for a 13.49-second win at 105 miles per hour / 169 kph. Twelve inches (30 centimeters) separated the two cars – and that wasn’t the end of it.

Following the downpour of consecutive wins, another storm followed – complaints from the losers, claiming something was wrong with the Mustang. They were right in saying, ‘No Mustang is supposed to be that fast‘ – but they learned the hard way that the 428 Cobra Jet was as legal as it got. And just as unbeatable – with Roger behind the wheel.

Following a dramatic turn in his life, the owner had to put the car away – a Vietnam deployment in 1969, followed by a family with kids, stopped his racing career. The vehicle stood parked for 35 years until the owner decided it was time to either sell it or restore it. Luckily, he made the correct call and got it back on the road. Not that there was much to do to it – the fine Mustang still wears its original paint and interior, and the odometer reads 7,327 miles (11,792 kilometers). When Roger began the restoration in 2005, the car had 6,700 miles on the clock (10,783 km).

The 2,870 Mustang 428 Cobra Jet units assembled for the 1968 model year were conservatively rated at 335 hp (340 PS) and 440 lb-ft (597 Nm). In truth, the seven-liter V8 was good for around 410 hp (415 PS), but Ford kept the power specs low to keep insurance costs down.