Battle of the beasts, total destruction drag race, Shelby shakedown - pick one, we just love playing with alliteration. And this is a special occasion because the Shelby GT500 is finally available for drag races against some other epic American muscle cars.
Based on the tech Ford put in the car, we feel like the GT500 wants to be at home in the company of an AMG. But a Mustang can never get away from being compared to a Dodge Challenger and a Chevy Camaro.
The star of the show packs an engine that's already famous. The 5.2-liter small-block V8 has been supercharged to produce 760 HP and 625 lb-ft (847 Nm) of torque. It's been paired to a 7-speed dual-clutch auto, which Ford says can get you across the line of a quarter-mile race quicker than 11 seconds.
We love the way the new Camaro drives and sounds, but we feel a little sad about this particular model. It's the runt of the muscle car litter. The ZL1 1LE is a track special with lightness on its mind, but it also only makes 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft from its supercharged 6.2-liter V8. That 10-speed auto also doesn't seem up to the job.
On the other hand, the Challenger Hellcat Redeye needs to be tested for doping because its a monster with about 800 ponies and 707 lb-ft from the now legendary Dodge supercharged screamer of a 6.2-liter. Drag racing being its thing, the Redeye is supposed to do 1/4 miles in 10.8 seconds.
The Dodge has one big downside, though, and that's its 4,427 pounds, which is 500 lbs more than the GT500 and about 600 compared to the 1LE.
Of course, results in the real world can be more controversial. But in Edmunds' test, the Mustang did an 11.3-second pass at 130.7 miles per hour, the Camaro managed 11.6 seconds at 122.4 mph and the Dodge came last at 11.7 seconds with 127 mph.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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