With the Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Charger plus Challenger almost out of the picture, the clash of American titans at the local quarter-mile dragstrip is left for the Chevy Corvette and Ford Mustang to resolve.
Indeed, Stellantis has ordained that Dodge will abandon the Hemi V8 ways of yesteryear if it wants to keep the Charger nameplate alive. No one knows what will happen with the Challenger past the 2023 model year and after the seven 'Last Call' editions are all sold out. Only the Charger will surely get a new lease of EV and maybe some Hurricane life – albeit in two- instead of four-door form.
The Chevrolet Camaro is also biting the dust after 2024MY production ends, and no successor is in sight – even though General Motors promises this is not the end of the road for the iconic nameplate. Alone, the Ford Mustang will soldier on as a gas-powered pony and muscle car, now in its S650 iteration, the seventh by its name.
Luckily, Chevy still has an ace up its sleeve – the mid-engine C8 Corvette Stingray, Z06, and E-Ray. The scarcity of the latter two is glaringly obvious, so the Stingray bears the brunt of wrestling with its most familiar foes. One of them is, of course, the eternal Ford Mustang GT, and their preferred battlefield is the local quarter-mile dragstrip.
The bigger, the better is usually a logical assumption – and it doesn't get any more significant than the four-lane venues of American drag racing. For example, the videographer behind the Wheels channel on YouTube is a big fan of Mission Racing Park in Canada and Bandimere Speedway in Colorado, but the allure of The Strip sometimes gets the better of him.
It's not the one filled with neon lights – instead, we are talking about The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where all the C8 versus Mustang GT action occurs. First things first, an inconspicuous, all-black (save the red strip on the tires and the crimson brake calipers) C8 was paid a visit by an all-orange (save for the black rims and roof) S550 Ford Mustang GT that looked all quarter-mile business with its meaty drag radials front and rear.
However, it all turned out a dud – either the driver didn't know what he was doing after he first took the lead thanks to a marvelous reaction time, or he was into some serious transmission problems. Either way, that racer was indeed having a terrible track day – car issues and a race lost to the C8 Stingray nemesis all at once!
Next up, a white-and-black Mustang GT tried to defend Ford's honor against a crimson C8 with black or silver wheels. It was to no avail, though – as the Chevy driver took command of the race early on and never relinquished the lead (11.77s versus 12.88s). Last but not least, maybe the awkward Saleen Fox Body Mustang GT could do something about this winning streak. Nope, not at all…
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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