There’s a new racier pony car making its debut at Sin City’s SEMA Show and it’s called the Mustang Cobra Jet Concept.

It’s a prototype version of Ford’s factory-built turnkey drag racer that replaces the 2013 Mustang Cobra Jet’s 5.0-liter V8 unit that’s available with or without a supercharger with a new iteration of the V8 featuring a pair of turbochargers incorporating the brand’s EcoBoost technologies.

According to Ford’s motorsports division, while superchargers provide instant on-demand power, they also require a lot of power especially at high boost levels. As an example, Ford says that the 2.9-liter blower fitted on the 2013 Cobra Jet uses as much as 100hp to drive the supercharger.

“When done right, turbocharging is just as good as or better than supercharging,” said Ford turbocharger design and release engineer Dave Born.

“To overcome the biggest perceived drawback of turbocharging – the lag – we’ve selected the smallest possible turbos that will give us the airflow we need,” he added. “We’ve also got some other enhancements to help improve the responsiveness; we have very low inertia and very low internal friction.”

Ford did not reveal the horsepower numbers, nor if and when the twin-turbocharged Mustang racer will head for production.

In addition to the newly developed prototype engine, the SEMA Show Cobra Jet project car also adopts Ford’s new black-and-blue racing stripe livery.

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