GM's Hummer H2 and Cobra's 26-foot 260 Venom cat get ready to do battle on the high seas.
It's always a gamble for a boat manufacturer to introduce a new model to its water toy lineup. The stakes become especially high when all the boats in one's line are V-bottom boats and the decision is made to mold a cat hull. Cobra Performance Boats in Montclair, California, found itself in such a dilemma but had the foresight to know it wasn't rolling the dice. With the advent of the 260 Venom, every boat magazine on the stands doled out the praises of this incredible new hull. Cobra owner, Jeff Bohn, had to have his own, of course, but it had to be insanely powerful.
The Cobra 260 Venom's stock powerplant is a hard-to-beat Mercruiser 496 Mag pushing 375 hp, but the most common motor ordered is the upgraded 496 Mag HO with 425 hp. With the Mag HO motor and a Bravo One drive hung from the transom, the Venom's air entrapment hull will run 75 mph even in mild chop. Would you classify that as insanely powerful? Hardly. The boat pictured on these pages is capable of 120-mph blasts of liquid adrenaline. Now we're talking. The motor creating warp factor nine is no hidden secret due to the dual quads poking through the boat's engine hatch. Hitting the switch that actuates the hydraulic engine cover will give you a real good idea of what motor-vates this wretched excess - 565 pure inches of angry big-block power topped with a supercharger the size of a Honda Civic motor and CMI tube headers that could pass a softball. This Teague masterpiece hammers the cylinders to the tune of a dyno-proven 1,000 hp. The Bravo One drive normally fit to this snake is a little too docile for these power figures, so the decision was made to install an Imco extension box and Extreme drive turning a four-blade, lab-finished Merc prop.