All vehicles. New cars, old cars, trucks, the kind of vehicles that we rub our hand over the dash board and talk to, to encourage it to keep going for us, just a bit longer, we’ve all been there, We like pouring over the new car magazines, with all the glossy pictures of the latest and greatest to be “Imported from Detroit”, the Motor City.

We especially like the fast cars. The cars of the 60’s and 70’s were fast. Yes, very fast, or so we thought. We would cruse the local hand-outs and give the spectators a trill. Idle through with the headers vibrating the windows like the bass music now-a-days. One of the stories told to me was from the owner of a Chevelle Super Sport. He would put a Twenty dollar bill on the dash board and invite his passenger to take it if he could, fight the G-force and grab it. He never did lose a Jackson. One of my personal thrills is how the horses push me back in my seat when not worrying about the gas mileage. Yes, we did have fast cars, back in the day. How do they compare to the fast cars of today?

Year 2013 – Never before have the Camaro and Mustang been quite so powerful, the ZL1 with 580 bhp and the Shelby GT500 blasting 662 bhp. The ZL1’s day began badly. With a display of overwhelming force, the GT500 embarrassed the Camaro in a drag race. Both cars get off the line in a hurry and all appears fair until the time comes for the ZL1 to shift gears. Even with its time-saving no-lift shift feature, the ZL1 can’t keep up. Not only does the GT500 have 82 more horses, it has 230 fewer pounds and a higher engine redline that let’s it hit 64 mph in 1^st gear. At 130 mph, the GT500 has a lead of almost five car-lengths.

The drag race is but one test. We will further investigate this head to head challenge.

Courtesy; Road & Track September 2012