1976 Ford Mustang Cobra II

1976 FORD MUSTANG COBRA II BACKGROUND
After growing steadily bigger and heavier with each of four different body skins over its 9-year-long 1st-generation, the Mustang suddenly shrank in 1974 to a fraction of its former size, and weight. The original pony car was a victim of downsizing, and it was one of the first. You’ve got to hand it to Ford for having the guts to take a hot-seller like the Mustang and completely remake it into a totally new type of car. In this case, the new Mustang II as it was called, was built on the same platform as the humble Ford Pinto, with the same humble powerplant, the 2.3L OHC 4-cylinder. By this time, new smog and safety regs had already castrated the Mustang, performance-wise. Even as choked-off and gutless they were, the 1st-gen Mustang’s V8 engines were still in demand and sorely missed in the new Mustang II. Ford did their best to make up for it by tarting up the 3 body styles with stripe package and other gimmicks. It took until the 1976 Ford Mustang Cobra II for Ford to deliver V8 power to the lightweight Mustang II. They shoehorned-in a 302 small block V8 with a 2-barrel carb wheezing out 134.

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1976 Ford Mustang Cobra II SPECIFICATIONS