Video: V-8 Muscle Car Challenge: Handling

om muscle car challenge. The contestants are the Chevrolet Camaro SS, the Dodge challenger R/T Scat Pack, and the Ford Mustang GT. Let's see how they do. What I really liked about the Camaro is that it does just about everything well. It's extremely fast. It's really well balanced, it handles well. It's comfortable, and for somebody my size, I'm able to drive it around this track really very well. So we weren't really keeping lap times here, but the Camaro SS was by far the fastest on the track. It didn't seem to matter who was driving it. They were gaining on whatever car was in front of them almost all day long. Sounds great. The shifter works great. It's got the rev match feature. It's just a great car on track. I think there are two performance shortcomings in the Camaro SS. One is the braking. It stops the car and it does it in pretty short order, but the pedal is mooshy, it's not linear. And that doesn't give you a lot of confidence on the track. And the other performance shortcoming is visibility. It's not just an issue out on the street where there are other cars that A pillars are in front of you. And because they're so little headroom, especially if you have a helmet on you are sitting so low, if you can fit it all that you are looking at the fattest part of the A pillars and the gauge hoods are kind of creeping up into your line of sight and a track that had more elevation changes than this one, I think I would probably be driving very slow in the Camaro. What I don't like about the Camaro SS is that there's not one in my garage. You know, I feel a kind of kinship with the challenger. It's big, it's bold. It's maybe a little bit slower than some of its peers, but you really can't help, but love the thing. It is so unabashedly retro in everything that it does, the way it looks, the way it sounds. Looking at that shaker hood out there as you're revving it up, it really is just a throwback experience. But if that's what you're looking for, it's absolutely perfect. What I really like about the challenger R/T Scat Pack is that it has a longer wheel base than the other cars. And when it starts to slide around, it's extremely controllable and it slides around frequently because those skinny tires just want to ignite when the car launches off the corner. Things that make the challenge great on the street, don't really translate to the track very well. It's a very comfortable car to drive, but then when you get in the corners, it has a lot of roll to it. It just feels big and soft compared to the other cars. The shifter has a good feel, but the throws are a little bit long. It's a little bit hard to shift quickly. And even though the brakes are remarkably good at stopping the car on the street, and to an extent on the track, they did soften up on us here in a way that again, the competitors did not. So the best thing about the Mustang, it may have the least horsepower, but it lets you use all of it coming out of the corner and thing squats down, takes off, get you down the straight in a hurry and get to the corners does very well through there too. It feels very nimble. It doesn't roll much. And it's got a great shifter for getting through the gears. The Mustang really comes into its own on the track. It's a little soft off the line out on the street, but here on the track, you keep it revving. You keep it in that sweet spot and it's terrific. The handling is very good, a little bit looser, a little bit more sliding than say the Camaro, but I actually find that to be kind of fun. There's one big thing that I don't like about the Mustang. Let me tell you about the Recaro seats. I hate the Recaro seat. HATE the Recaro seats. They are extremely uncomfortable. They're not adjustable enough. It's not even so much a matter of width and bolstering it's the seat bottom that isn't adjustable enough up and down and tilt wise. And so you're not really in a comfortable position in the car ever. You know, I'm racking my brain thinking, what didn't I like about this car? And there's really not a whole lot on the street is a completely different set of issues but on the track, I just found myself really enjoying driving the Mustang. Maybe just the fact that, you know, it's, it's not all about going fast. You know, I would've liked a little more overall grip, a little bit more confidence turning into a corner that the Camaro had. The Camaro was just a beast out there, but this was still totally proficient and at home out here on the track. So there you have it! For more details on how these cars did on the track and who came out on top in the competition, go to cars.com. (thump)