Mustangworld: The 2000 Cobra R

During development of the 2000 SVT Cobra R, a breakthrough session in the wind tunnel proved that adding specially designed front splitter, hood and rear wing body parts would produce the desired high-speed stability.

In that wind-tunnel session, the Special Vehicle Engineering team used crudely fabricated development pieces. The next step was to create production parts that not only achieved the performance objectives, but also looked good and integrated with the car’s body design.

For that, John Coletti. SVE manager, called on Darrell Behmer, a Ford chief designer whose projects have included the design of the ‘94 Mustang and, more recently, the ‘99 Mercury Cougar.

“This was a form follows total function exercise,” Behmer says. "John’s people
had the data worked Out like horizontal surface area for the splitter, plug points for hood clearance, wing angle and height restrictions. Our job was to take the development pieces and engineering data, and design the parts so they worked right and also looked right on the Cobra R.”

Functional Brake Cooling ports

There was another aspect to the design challenge time.

“John wanted this done yesterday,” Behmer recalls, “so basically we short-circuited the usual system. I worked with Ken Winarski and half a dozen clay modelers at the Advanced Design studio. We pretty much went from sketches on a paper napkin right to clay models. There wasn’t time for development work on computers.”

Working with the primary functional issues of aerodynamic forces, clearances and fastening points, Behmer and the modelers tackled the styling exercise. They sculpted the splitter shape to flow into the front of the car, molded louvers on the hood’s dome that complement the car’s side scoops, and created stanchions to support the rear wing that are tilted to reflect the tumblehome and taillight angles.

Pillar / stanchions angle to match the tail light angles.

“This whole process took about a third of the time such a job normally takes,” Behmer says, “and it was a blast to do. It was all done, reviewed, approved and ready to go into production in eight days.”

Testing data shows the effectiveness of the splitter and wing in achieving high-speed stability. The combination produces a tenfold reduction in front-end lift, along with a threefold increase in rear downforce. The added drag reduces top speed by less than five mph.