Because of all the excitement with the upcoming 2010 Camaro, I've been finding myself hanging out at the camaro5.com forums a lot lately. For the record, I love my Mustang and think it's the best car I've ever owned, but I have owned 3 Z28s in the past as well as two other Mustang GTs, so I will buy whichever car I feel is the best at the moment (as long as it's a RWD V8 that is).

So there's this thread over there Shouldn't we be comparing this to the new Mustangs? where the poster complained of all the threads comparing the 2010 Camaro to the 2005-2009 Mustang, when it would be more fair to use the 2010 Mustang for comparison. Like many threads here, some of the responses were intelligent and made sense, while others weren't and didn't.

One guy actually started a pretty good post, where he claimed that he really wanted a 2010 Mustang that would be competitive with the Camaro SS, because competition is good, etc. But then he ruined it by saying that the Camaro/Mustang rivalry really wasn't much of a rivalry because the Camaro had always owned the Mustang from the '60s through the '90s. And then he claimed that the car magazines and professional drivers backed up his statement...

To bring a little balance to that thread, I posted a link to a Car And Driver article from 1987 named Best American GT, where the 1987 Mustang GT owned a Camaro IROC-Z and a Firebird Formula. I also mentioned that I learned the hard way that the '80s 5.0 was one potent engine, when my 1984 Z28 got blown away by a Ford Capri 5.0.

So in reply to my post, the guy basically dismissed that article (which was posted on a Camaro site, btw), and said that I was lucky to have found one of probably 3 articles in the '80s where the Mustang actually beat the Camaro. Heh, that's what he thought - he didn't realize that I have a file cabinet full of articles like that pulled from car magazines, and I actually came up with 6 additional magazine articles from 1984 to 1989 where a Mustang owned the IROC-Z in head-to-head matchups. Even the IROC-Z with the 350 c.i. couldn't match the Mustang 5.0 from 1986 through 1988 or so.

I posted the results of the 6 articles in another reply, along with a bonus Road & Track comparison of the 1970 Boss 302 vs the 1969 Z28 (the Boss won). And guess what happened? The thread just died! It was like Jack Nicholson said, "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" I guess.

For completeness, here are the results:

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Motor Trend Nov 1989 - Bang for the Buck

Camaro IROC-Z (305 c.i.) 0-60 7.83 seconds; 1/4 mile 16.28 @ 84.31 mph
Mustang LX 0-60 6.62 seconds; 1/4 mile 15.38 @ 91.52 mph
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Motor Trend Sep 1988 - Top-Speed 10

Camaro IROC-Z (350 c.i.) 0-60 7.22 seconds; 1/4 mile 15.67 seconds
Mustang GT 0-60 7.16 seconds; 1/4 mile 15.60 seconds
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Motor Trend Aug 1987 - Domestic Dynamite

Camaro IROC-Z (350 c.i.) 0-60 6.68 seconds; 1/4 mile 15.23 @ 91.2 mph
Mustang GT 0-60 6.54 seconds; 1/4 mile 15.13 @ 94.1 mph
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Road & Track Oct 1986 - Ford Mustang GT vs Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z

Camaro IROC-Z (350 c.i.) 0-60 6.8 seconds; 1/4 mile 15.3 @ 90.5 mph
Mustang GT 0-60 6.7 seconds; 1/4 mile 15.3 @ 93.0 mph
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Popular Science Sep 1986 - Hot Coupes

Camaro IROC-Z (305 c.i.) 0-60 8.5 seconds
Mustang GT 0-60 6.8 seconds
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Road & Track Dec 1984 - Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z vs Ford Mustang GT

Camaro IROC-Z (305 c.i.) 0-60 8.1 seconds; 1/4 mile 16.5 @ 90.0 mph
Mustang GT 0-60 7.2 seconds; 1/4 mile 15.9 @ 91.0 mph
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and the bonus:

1969 Camaro Z28 0-60 7.4 seconds; 1/4 mile 15.1 @ 95.0 mph
1970 Mustang Boss 302 0-60 6.9 seconds; 1/4 mile 14.9 @ 96.0 mph

So to stay on topic of the 2010 Mustang, how do we all see the rivalry with the 2010 Camaro? I'm personally prepared to concede 2010 to the Camaro, but think that Ford will come back strong in 2011 with some worthy competition for Chevy. Anyone else?

 

The rivalry is heated. The Camaro does have a slight edge in year to year performance. I think they have more "wins." It pretty much owned most Mustang's from the death of the Fox Body in '93 to 2002 when the 2003 Cobra came out and "terminated" the competition.

 

I like competition and all, but both sides have blinders in a lot of cases.
They bleed their car and nothing else.

One thing cannot be disputed is the Mustang has more of a following and mystique to it.
It doesn't matter how fast anything is....if its not around to enjoy it.

Wow that guy will be in for a shock .... it'll have power...but it'll have MORE weight than the SS.

 

The Shelby GT500 exists TODAY! Hard to race a fictional Z28 - which will probably never happen since GM is about three heartbeats away from death - against the current Cobra.

And even if they do get a Z28, the next Shelby GT500 is likely to get a significant boost in power with the 2011 Mustang GT getting 400HP. I would expect the 2011 GT500 will have AT LEAST 550HP.

 

Man, not to shift direction of this thread, but I have to give Ford their props on the 03-04 Cobra. Almost 6 years later and its still doing what it was set out to do (Terminating the competition). Everyone is still playing catchup on that one.

 

Amazing automobile no doubt!

 

I don't care which is faster, the Mustang has the soul. And that's what does it for me. Of course it doesn't hurt when the stang is faster

 

Exactly.

How many movies has the Camaro been featured in, again?

 

Well it's not exactly a movie, but it played a very important part in the Simon & Simon TV show.

 

I seriously doubt if the Camaro gets a Z/28 version and here's why. Such a car would then be approaching Corvette territory, in both price and performance.

 

It did? I don't remember the Stang being in that show. Spenser: For Hire I remember, though.

 

The Mustang will put the competition to sleep again and that especially goes for the Challenger. And as for the competition for Japan, they'll just fall by the wayside and off into oblivion. End of story!

 

In 1987, I was 19 years old and just purchased my first Mustang--a 87 5.0L 5-speed GT. The streets were filled with IROCs and it wasn't long before all of those IROC owners knew that they would be beat by the new Mustang 5.0L. It didn't matter if we were racing on the street or at the track. And the bad news for the Camaro guys was that they could only get the "big" 350 with an automatic trans, which meant that they smaller 305 w/manual trans was nearly as quick. With either engine, the Camaro was a fairly easy kill for a 5.0L Mustang.

 

By the way, I've heard that the new Camaro will have a V6 with at least 300 HP. It's kinda scary to think that the V6 Camaro will be able to run with a Mustang GT.

Then again, I also heard that the next Mustang with V6 will have more than 300 HP. Weird.

 

Not really. That V6 will be about 47 ft lbs of torque shy of the V8 in our GTs, in a car that weighs as much or more. Our GTs should still smoke the Camaro V6, easily if you've done a CAI and performance tune, which can net you up to 335 HP/340 ft lbs of torque. Camaro V6 will be 300 HP and around 273 ft lbs of torque, if the Cadillac CTS is any indication.

 

Yeah but how much does it weigh and how much torque will it have?
Answer.... 3800lbs and 273ftlbs
Compare that to the weight of the Mustang GT and its torque specs.... goodnight Camaro V6.
I pitty the poor shmuck that makes a decision based on horsepower alone.

As for the Z28... it'll cost more than the base vette anyway...
Believe me, they have one, and yes its faster than the current GT500...
but will they put it out, another story.

Mark my words, the current GT500 is still a good deal away from its A Game....

 

The thing is most of the threads started on this and most of the posts are young kids who never even drove any of these cars. Most have no idea what they are even talking about. My first car was a '69 Camaro SS Pro street big block. I have a soft spot for the Camaro. The problem is the Camaro SS price. Most people need to have 2 cars especially if you have a family. This is were the GT fits in perfect as it allows a person to have an everyday car and the GT. All i hope is the GT does not end up in the Camaro price range. There is much more to these cars than just a 0-60 times. This is what makes the Mustang the total package as most do not go to the track or even street race for that matter.

 

I still say Chevy shot themselves in the foot with naming the V8 Camaro the "SS". It really should be the Z/28. They could have left the door open for a 427 SS with the Z06's 505hp LS7. It would have competed square on with the GT500. And the "400hp Z/28" would have matched up nicely with the 2011 400hp 5.0 Mustang. Oh well.....

 

some of these guys can be hard headed because they are young and just came from imports. the camaro is the first domestic they like but they still have strong hate for domestics, especially the mustang because its the iconic domestic car

 

Okay, fine. But do we know for sure what the ratings are for the V6 Camaro? Even if it's short on torque and will weigh more than a GT, it's WAAAAAY too close for comfort in my opinion. When I said that it would run with a GT, I didn't mean it would beat it. I simply meant that it will be in the same ballpark in acceleration.