V-Max Vs. 427 Cobra
V-MAX VS. 427 COBRA
CLASH OF THE TITANS
The car that already is a legend takes on the motorcycle that soon will be
PAUL DEAN
NO MATTER HOW YOU INTERPRET IT, YAMAHA'S FIRE-breathing V-Max is about as subtle as a whack across the forehead with a running chainsaw. Its primary function is to leave its competition for dead, to outrun them like they were stuck in neutral. And it gets that job done better than anything else on two wheels—not artfully or with finesse, but instead with the brute force of cubic horsepower.
In Other words, the V-~vtax is a motorcycle that might have been built by Carroll Shelby.
Now, you probably know Carroll Shelby only as the guy who sells some pretty fair Texas chili preparation. But his most noteworthy achievement has been in the field of hot cars, not hot chili. Shelby earned true folk-hero status in auto-racing circles by masterminding the design and con struction of perhaps the most awe-inspiring sports cars ever to turn a wheel on American highways: the Shelby Cobras. Built during the middle Sixties, the Cobras were small, English-built chassis originally designed for little four-cylinder motors, but into which Shelby shoehorned big-inch, mega-power, American V-8 engines. And the granddaddy Cobra of them all, the car that became legend the moment the very first one rolled out of Shelby's Los Angeles showroom back in 1965, was the 427 Cobra, a 2500-pound two-seater powered by a 427-cubic-inch, 425-horsepower Ford passenger-car motor. Only about 300 of these spectacular cars were built, but they had an impact on American motoring that still lingers to this day.
Just as the V-Max was built to settle all which-is-fastest disputes, so was the 427 Cobra specifically designed to take on—and defeat—all comers. And so, too, does Yamaha's technique for accomplishing this task parallel Shelby’s; Don't diddle around with buzzy little motors that have to wind up like air-raid sirens before making anything happen; put some big horsepower numbers on the job and simply get it over with—fast.
"When you cruise the streets 2naV•Maxorin a427 Cobra, you arent innocent1~ looking for some one to race with; youre irolling for fresh victims'
That methodology is considered crude by some, but it works. And it's the stuff of which legends are built. Indeed, next time someone at a social gathering starts bragging about his stoplight-racing prowess, casually mention that you ride a V-Max or drive a 427 Cobra; what you'll undoubtedly get in return is silence, or at least a quick change of subject. Because no one in his right mind messes with either of these two. They don't merely beat their opponents, they humiliate them. When you cruise the streets on a V-Max or in a 427 Cobra, you aren't innocently looking for someone to race with; you're trolling for fresh victims, for poor, unsuspecting souls to chew up and spit out your exhaust pipes.
Ah, but all of this leads to one obvious, inescapable question: What would happen ifa V-Max and a 427 Cobra were to race each other? Which one would be able to lay claim to being the quickest form of street-legal transportation ever to roam the highways and byways of America?
We could have gotten the answer simply by comparing the V-Max’s performance numbers to those listed in any one of numerous road tests of 427 Cobras. Trouble was, all of those tests were published back in 1965 or 1966. And although we weren't skeptical of the Cobra's alleged performance, we didn’t want to rely on data that had been compiled back when most of this staff still was in elementary school. So we enlisted the aid of our sister magazine. Road & Track. to help us locate a 427 Cobra. Those cars have become collectors items that have far more value if restored to stock condition than if modified, so the chances were excellent that we'd be able to find a representative one.
Boy, did we. When Karl Bullock told us over the phone that his 427 Cobra was “pretty nice,” it was the understatement of the year. His Midnight Blue '66 isn't just a well-kept old sports car; it’s a motorized objet d'art, a fully restored sports classic that has won awards in numerous car shows. But it's not just for looking at; Bullock has restored the car to full SC (for “semi-competition”) specs, making it even more powerful than the standard model. Shelby, you see, made a limited number of models, called Cobra 427 SC, for buyers who were a bit more competition-minded. The SC differed from the standard version in several ways, not the least of which was cost ($9000 back in 1966. versus $7000 for the standard).
But for that added two grand, you got, among other things: bigger wheels, tires and brakes; a larger gas tank (42 gallons versus 18); side exhaust pipes; a roll bar; and, naturally. more power. The SC had higher-compression pistons and" aluminum heads with larger ports, and Shelby would fit the engines with any one of several optional camshafts, depending upon the buyer’s preference. And so, despite having just one giant, Holley four-barrel carb (the standard version used two), the SC Cobras would crank out between 480 and 500 horsepower. And the engine in Bullock's SC. which had been blueprinted by the man who was Shelby’s engine expert back in the Sixties, was good for about 5 1 5 horsepower.
Despite those impressive numbers, however, we were concerned that this particular Cobra wouldn’t get representative times simply because Bullock would not be willing to push his showpiece to the limits. But we couldn’t have been more wrong. Oh, he did tiptoe down the strip rather gingerly for the first few runs, shifting slowly and staying well below the seven-grand redline; but when he kept watching the V-Max sprint down the quarter-mile far ahead of his beloved Cobra, he got serious. On went the full-face helmet and leather driving gloves, and away went the placid smile he had been wearing. This was going to be a real race.
But we had expected nothing less. The Cobra came into battle carrying some heavy performance credentials, including claimed quarter-mile ETs of about 12 seconds flat with terminal speeds approaching 120 mph. But the most impressive claim of all, and the one that figured to give the V-Max some trouble, was the number that had rocked the automobile world back in 1966 and established the 427 Cobra as the ultimate performance car ofall-time: the ability to accelerate from zero to 100 mph and then brake back down to a dead stop in a mere 1 3.8 seconds. And that was with a standard 427 Cobra, much less Bullock's 500-plushorsepower SC. The V-Max, it seemed, was going to have its hands full.
As luck would have it, though, Carlsbad Raceway, which always has a rather slippery start-line surface, was exceptionally slick the day we ran our two street weapons there. And so neither got optimum launches, which was reflected in their elapsed times. The V-Max never got closer than a half-second to the times it had turned at Baylands Raceway a week earlier; and Bullock’s SC perhaps paid an even greater penalty, for it barely matched the ETs usually turned by standard 427 Cobras.
But even if we were to be liberal and assume that the Cobra had been a full second off of its optimum ET, the VMax still would have soundly trounced it in the quartermile. As it was, the Yamaha outdragged the Cobra by a second and a half at Carlsbad, posting an 1 1.34/122.95 run, as opposed to the Shelby's 12.85/1 14.64. Clearly, the V-Max had won the quarter-mile competition.
Bullock wasn't ready to throw in the towel, though, because poor traction and all, he promptly went out and beat the Cobra’s legendary 0-100-0 times. Elis 13.77-second run was only .03-second quicker than that set by noted Cobra racer, the late Ken Miles, 20 years earlier; but considering the shortage of traction, Bullock's time was quite impressive. And, in fact, V-Max rider Steve Anderson had to get pretty serious himself to beat Bullock’s effort. But beat it he did, eventually getting the big Yamaha’s 0-100-0 time down to 12.35 seconds. Even Bullock was impressed with that. And so he graciously, but reluctantly, admitted defeat. “That's some motorcycle,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.
True. But the V-Max is more than just “some” motorcycle; when it comes to straight-line performance, it’s the motorcycle. In fact, it’s the street-legal, production-line motor vehicle—two-wheeled or four.
This is not to say that the 427 Cobra, Bullock’s or anyone else’s, is undeserving of its legendary status. Remember. it was designed two decades ago using existing technology and a collection of components that were never intended to be assembled on the same vehicle. When you take all that into consideration, and add the fact that the Cobra is capable of a 1 5or 20-mph higher top speed than the Yamaha and will turn considerably quicker lap times on a roadrace track, Carroll Shelby’s 20-year-old handiwork seems every bit as impressive as the V-Max.
It’s just that when you're in a Cobra, almost nothing will out-accelerate you; but when you’re on a V-Max, absolutely nothing will. Just ask Karl Bullock.
