AutoTrader Find of the Week: A Brand New 2003 Ford Mustang Mach 1

I always feel a little guilty covering a Mustang in this column.

Being a Mustang fan is a little like genuinely enjoying craft beer or food truck tacos. People with more refined tastes think you’re low-class, and people who are less adventurous think you’re a show-off. Either way, people tend to roll their eyes at you and make the same tired jokes.

I pay no mind to the musings of the tragically uncreative or terminally online. But what I am sensitive about is people thinking I only like Mustangs or muscle cars. Quite honestly, it often stops me from featuring cars in this column that catch my personal interest. And true, this does encourage me to happily broaden my horizons. But I always end up feeling a little sheepish — like somehow my favourite thing isn’t as valid as what others enjoy.

But damnit, the Mustang is an important car. It’s been around for 60 years and, despite recent sales dips, it’s still America’s best-selling sports car. It introduced customers to the idea of an options list and not only created an entire class of sports cars (the “pony car”), but also helped resurrect and push forward accessible performance at moments when it mattered most. Even its lesser-known entries are important.

Case in point: somebody needs to buy and continue to preserve this showroom-fresh 2003 Mustang Mach 1, currently for sale on AutoTrader through Carson Exports in Dartmouth, N.S.

It has travelled only 116 km since rolling out of the factory in Dearborn, Mich. — one of 9,652 units produced from late 2002 into 2003 for the 2003 and 2004 model years. The Cobra outsold the Mach 1 almost two to one in those years, making the Mach 1 roughly twice as rare.

The uninitiated would be forgiven for thinking this is nothing more than another “New Edge” SN95 Mustang — a late example of the awkward middle child between the beloved “Foxbody” (of which the SN95 was only ever a mild rework) and the smash-hit retro-revival S197.

True enough, the SN95 doesn’t get much love outside of the fabled 2003-04 “Terminator” Cobra model with its independent rear suspension, shrieking supercharger, and limitless power ceiling.

However, the Mach 1, while not the performance behemoth the Cobra was, was much more than just an appearance package on a standard GT. You won’t find the humdrum SOHC 4.6-litre V8 that powered everything from SUVs to taxicabs under the hood of this one.

Check the VIN and you’ll see the eighth digit, which signifies the engine code, is marked with an “R” — a designationyou won’t find on any other Ford-manufactured passenger vehicle that year, because it was an engine unique to the Mach 1.

Under the hood is not the 4.6L SOHC engine, but a 4.6L DOHC engine with ram air. The Mach 1’s powerplant is, in fact, a former Cobra engine fitted with a ram air-style “Shaker” intake that iconically protrudes from under the hood.

Don’t get it twisted, though — this isn’t a naturally aspirated version of the “Terminator” engine. The 2003-04 Cobra’s engine was a heavy-duty cast-iron unit with forged internals to handle the supercharger’s forced induction.

The Mach 1 was instead more of an evolution of the 2001 Cobra, which had essentially been mothballed when it failed to meet performance expectations.

Like the previous Cobras, the Mach 1’s engine is a hand-assembled unit based on an aluminum block. However, as an upgrade over the previous snakes, the Mach 1 received high-flow heads (similar to the Terminator), a spicier cam and valvetrain profile, and a new high-flow exhaust.

One certainly gets the impression that the Mach 1 began life as what would have been the next-generation Cobra, before SVT boss John Coletti told the bean counters to stuff it and went over the top with the new snake in an effort to “terminate” the competition.

Still, there was no reason to toss the baby out with the bathwater, and we got a great “middle child” as a result.

The 2003 Mach 1 boasted 305 hp and 320 lb-ft of torque (arguably the first naturally aspirated Mustang to break the 300-hp mark since 1971). Certainly not big numbers by today’s standards, but enough to launch the Mach zero to 100 km/h in about 5.3 seconds and run the quarter-mile in the high 13-second range. For context, that put the Mach 1 within spitting distance of an E46 BMW M3 — except you could have the Mach 1 for about $20,000 less (or roughly $32,500 in today’s dollars).

A dumb comparison? MotorTrend didn’t think so in ’03.

In addition to the superior engine, the Mach 1 received reworked suspension. Higher-rate springs lowered it a quarter-inch compared to the GT and increased roll stiffness, while gas-pressurized Tokico struts and shocks made the Mach 1 an overall more compliant sports car. And while it was stuck with the GT’s choice of a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic transmission, it did receive the same 3.55 gear ratio as the Cobra.

This particular Mach 1 was finished in Torch Red (one of only six available colours) and properly optioned with a five-speed manual transmission.

The bad news? The asking price is $80,000.

For that, you could easily buy a new or gently used S550 Mach 1. Heck, that kind of money puts you in Dark Horse territory.

But the good news?

You don’t have to spend that kind of money if all you want is a well-kept ’03 Mach 1. There’s a yellow one for sale in Kelowna, B.C., right now on AutoTrader with fewer than 30,000 km on the clock for less than half the asking price. Keep an eye on AutoTrader — examples pop up all the time.

As for this out-of-the-box-fresh Mach 1, you should probably buy it if you own some kind of museum. Keep it as-new and perfectly preserved, because it’s an important car. Besides jump-starting the heritage craze of the 2000s, it showed that mid-level Mustangs could go toe-to-toe with whatever the competition had to offer. It was the first step in Ford leaning into handling-focused Mustangs you could reasonably compare to an M3. It’s the genesis of the revived Boss, GT350, S550 Mach 1 and Dark Horse.

No, it isn’t as sophisticated or outright beautiful as a European classic. It doesn’t have the raw hype or mythical status of a Japanese icon. Nor does it have the brutish utilitarianism of many other American muscle cars. But it is significant nonetheless.