Once again, a Camaro SS takes on the Mustang GT in a drag race.
Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Duracell and Energizer. Samsung and Apple. Corporate rivalries like these define a generation, but in the automotive world, there is perhaps no greater rivalry than Ford and Chevrolet with the Mustang and the Camaro.
The latest iteration of the naturally-aspirated Camaro SS comes with a 6.2-L V8 with 455 horsepower and 455 lb-ft of torque. Power is routed to the rear wheels through either a 6-speed manual or a 10-speed automatic transmission. Zero to sixty is done in just 4.1 seconds, with quarter-mile times usually measured at the 12.5-second mark.
The GT, meanwhile, has a 5.0-L Coyote V8 that produces 460 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque. This particular Mustang GT is an older model, however, and so it’s Coyote V8 only produces 412 horsepower and 390 lb-ft of torque. That’s a significant deficit for the GT to make up against the larger Camaro. Just about the only thing the older pony car has going for it is that it’s about 100 lbs lighter, but that seems hardly enough to make up for 43 horses.
But as we’ve seen time and time again, it’s more often the driver that determines the winner of a drag race and not the car. From the beginning of the video, we see the Camaro struggle to find traction. This seems mostly to do with the Camaro driver being unable to successfully perform a burnout to warm up the car’s tires.
As the Mustang and Camaro launch, you can see the Camaro driver is easing into the race in order to prevent their wheels from spinning. This gives the manual Mustang an early lead, but once the Camaro’s tires have firmly gripped the track its power advantage comes into play and the car starts to creep ahead.
It’s not enough to catch the Mustang, though, and the two cars finish with less than a tenth of a second between them. The Mustang GT finished in 12.9 seconds at 112.68 mph, while the Camaro finished in 12.95 seconds at 111.88 mph.
Watch the second race against a Ford Falcon to see the Camaro really struggle to grip the track.