2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 vs. 2013 Ford Shelby GT500

Mustang and Camaro. These two flag-waving, tire-shredding, all-American musclecars have met countless times on the street, the strip, the track, the newsstand, and the Internet over the past four and a half decades. Enthusiasts willing, they'll continue to do battle for decades to come. For the moment, though, it comes down to this.

We recently set out to determine which of these two titans -- arguably the greatest cars of their lineage -- is the better car. We took the 2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and the 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 to the street, the dragstrip, and the racetrack. In each venue, the two heavyweights squared off, and where each corner may have expected a knockout, we were treated to a true competition far closer than we expected.

Knowing full well that we're about to anger at least half of you, let's step into the ring.

THE STREET

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No matter how many of you out there regularly drag or track your car, the majority of your miles are covered on the street. It's an unforgiving place, full of bad pavement, bad drivers, and endless traffic. It offers little to no objective, scientific data about how a car performs, but rather a feeling, a subjective impression. At the end of a long day of driving, we had to ask ourselves which one we'd rather drive the next day.

It's hard to believe, but these two cars and their combined 1242 horsepower and 1187 lb-ft of torque are incredibly easy to drive to work. Both offer progressive clutch engagement and easily modulated throttles. Both feature electronically adjustable shock absorbers to improve ride quality, and big brakes that never come off grabby. Both are not, however, equal.

Be it a back road or the daily commute, the Camaro ZL1 is the better street car. Its magnetorheological shock absorbers offer an impressive performance range, smoothing the impacts of rough pavement in Tour mode and keeping the heavy chassis under control in Sport mode. Senior features editor Jonny Lieberman described it to me as "basically a sportier CTS-V," balancing ride and handling beautifully. The GT500, by contrast, suffers from a stiffer ride and too much vertical motion. Every bump gets your head bobbing up and down as the big Shelby bucks like an unbroken colt. Its two-mode Bilstein shocks are simply too stiff for everyday driving, even in Normal mode.

The GT500 just isn't meant for everyday driving. It's built for performance, so we got off the freeways and surface streets and headed for the hills. One of two things happens on a canyon road: either a car comes into its element and digs in, delivering a fantastic driving experience, or all the problems you noticed on the way out of town are amplified. The GT500 does both. On the one hand, it handles better than any solid axle car -- save perhaps the Boss 302 -- has any right to, but on the other, that vertical motion grates on your confidence. Real-world roads aren't racetrack-smooth. They have bumps in inconvenient places, such as mid-corner overlooking a gorge.

To be clear, the Mustang never tried to get away from us, but there was always a niggling suspicion it might. Hit a bump under any condition, be it acceleration, cornering, or braking, and that live rear axle begins dancing around, undermining driver confidence and slowing you down. We also noticed the brakes lose some of their initial bite as they heated up, a problem that later came back to haunt the Shelby.

The ZL1, by virtue of its independent suspension and magnetic shocks, did not suffer this problem. Rather, it was planted and confident, never dancing over the bumps or otherwise testing the driver's resolve. Whereas the GT500 was work to drive hard, the Camaro made you feel like a hero, encouraging you to push ever harder. Drivers of both cars will have fun, but the ZL1 driver won't be sweating at the end of the road.

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That's not to say the GT500 is no fun. In fact, the Shelby offers better steering than the Camaro, with sharper turn-in and better feel. It also provides better sight lines as a result of its high seating position, which leaves you feeling like you're riding on top of the car rather than in it. While the Camaro feels more like a sports car, its massive pillars and small windows impede outward visibility.

Perhaps the most telling difference came in how the cars used their potentially unwieldy power. Both cars wear Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar G:2 tires, though the Camaro's are wider front and rear. This tire, as we've seen many times, absolutely needs heat to work. When it gets cold, it's rock hard and has little grip. Get it heated up, though, and it sticks like glue. I mention this because the cars behaved very differently on cold tires. The Shelby constantly was chirping and spinning the tires and sliding the back end around, even with stability and traction control on. The ZL1 did nothing of the sort. With both cars making far more than enough torque to obliterate the rear tires at 1500 RPM, credit goes to the Camaro's suspension for keeping the power on the ground, in spite of the tires.

At the end of our road loops, the response from the editors was consistent. The Mustang was simply harder to drive fast. Some preferred the challenge instead of the Camaro's reflexive, unflappable handling, but unless you're our esteemed road test editor or a professional racer, you'll be faster and more confident behind the wheel of the Camaro.

THE STRIP

Drag racing and musclecars go hand-in-hand. From a stoplight or a Christmas tree, there's no rush like a wide-open throttle blast through the gears, and anyone can do it. Anyone with the desire to buy a factory supercharged V-8 certainly will. We did, over and over.

Drag racing, though, is not as cut-and-dry as it sounds. Timing is vitally important, as is traction. Cut a bad 60-foot time, and you might as well abort the race and try again. Still, it's usually a fair bet that all other things being equal, the more powerful car will win. That's certainly the case here. The 662-horsepower GT500 hits 60 mph in 3.5 seconds to the 580-horsepower ZL1's 3.8 seconds. The gap only widens from there, with the GT500 finishing the quarter-mile in 11.6 seconds at a blazing 125.7 mph, trailed by the Camaro at 12.1 seconds and 117.4 mph.

It's a closer race than it sounds like. Both cars feature launch control, so all you have to do is floor the gas and release the clutch (don't side-step it) and you'll lay down a consistent time, one even an experienced drag racer would have trouble beating. That's because both cars will be spinning their tires and wagging their tails all the way through first gear, launch control computers be damned. When you're putting that much torque to just two tires, these things happen. The Mustang and its extra 75 lb-ft of torque suffer more here, with more wheel spin and more sliding around. As a result, the race is actually very close through the first two gears until the Mustang finally hooks up and walks away in third.

Despite its better times, the Mustang is more work to drive fast. But to quote everyone's favorite drag racing movie, "winning's winning." With Ford's adjustable launch control, even a novice drag racer will be able to put away ZL1s at the drag strip behind the wheel of a GT500.

THE TRACK

Time, then, for the tiebreaker. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca is one of the preeminent racetracks in the world, offering deceptively difficult corners, big elevation changes, and straightaways capped with heavy braking zones, all in just 2.23 miles. To be fast here, you need the complete package: big power, bigger brakes, and a world-class chassis. To get the most out of the contenders, we brought in our race ace, Randy Pobst, to lay down the fastest laps these cars had in them. The results were shocking.

Having tracked the last GT500, we expected a clean sweep from the Camaro. The previous Shelby was unruly at the track, oversteering and sliding around as it struggled to manage its enormous power. So what did Ford do? Add a bigger engine with even more power. Luckily, a few tricks were borrowed from the Boss 302 program. This new GT500 hooks up out of corners better than anyone expected.

"It doesn't spin the back tires badly at all for its power output," Pobst reported. "Really impressive traction. It puts down the power extremely well. Using second gear off of turn two, the Shelby could take a lot of throttle and just drive off the corner. It didn't have the snap power oversteer issue in second gear that the Camaro does."

Indeed, while the ZL1 has a Corvette-sourced computer program that allows you to floor the gas halfway through a corner and let the computer dole out the torque for maximum traction, the GT500 gets by with good old-fashioned chassis tuning. Roll quickly into the throttle during corner exit, and the Mustang digs in and flings you down the straight. It doesn't seem possible, but it really does get all 631 lb-ft of torque to the ground.

That's not to say the ZL1 is using an electronic crutch. Randy ran laps in both Track Mode (the most permissive) and with no computer aids at all, and despite all Chevy's programming, he was able to turn a slightly faster lap without the helpers. While it could be argued that less than two-tenths of a second isn't much, races have been won by smaller margins.

"The Track Mode setting is a good setting for an aggressive track day driver," Pobst said. "It does an excellent job of keeping the car from getting in trouble. It was putting power down extremely well. I do believe it's taking a little bit of time off the lap time because the car won't leave the corner as hard. I couldn't generate those little 12-percent slip angles, power exits that are so nice with a front-engine, rear-drive, powerful car."

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Needless to say, Randy preferred to drive with the ZL1's computer off. But when he did, he found that the Camaro had a tendency to understeer mid-corner, and, without the computer dictating power output, would snap-oversteer if he floored the gas on corner exit. If he rolled into the power and let the car sit down on the rear end, he was home free. Still, he summed up the ZL1 by saying "The body motions are all extremely well-controlled. It's at home on the racetrack."

So which car won? Well, both did. When we mapped both cars' fastest laps, we were shocked by how similar they were. In fact, were the cars running head-to-head, the lead would change 12 times in that one lap -- impressive, considering the track has only 11 turns. As we expected, the Mustang and its massive engine were faster on the straights and up the hill from turn five to the top of turn eight, Laguna Seca's famed Corkscrew. The Camaro, though, was faster in the corners and pulled higher g's in nearly every turn. To our surprise, the cars were dead even exiting the final corner. The Mustang laid down the faster lap solely by virtue of its 82-horsepower, 75-lb-ft advantage in a drag race up the front straight to the finish line. The result: Shelby, 1:38.69; ZL1, 1:39.18.

But wait, there's a catch. You see, Randy had another observation about the Shelby. "The brakes just don't generate confidence. They're not enough to stop this car on a racetrack. On the street, they're probably fine. But the Camaro brakes do stop the car."

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While the Mustang was a half-second faster around the track than the ZL1 on its best lap, it couldn't repeat the performance. By the end of the first lap, the brakes had already begun to heat up so badly, we could smell them from the pits as the car passed by on the front straight. By the end of the second lap, the Shelby had lost more than half of its advantage over the ZL1, turning a 1:39.03. By the third lap, the Mustang was behind the Camaro, turning a 1:39.30. The ZL1, meanwhile, never deviated by more than two-tenths of a second.

The problem, we suspect, is cooling. The Mustang is 234 pounds lighter than the Camaro and has larger front brakes, and while it has more power and more speed to deal with, it should stop better. In a single attempt, it does, stopping from 60 mph 7 feet shorter than the Camaro. At the track, though, Randy complained of serious fade. "Brakes lack bite, worse each lap," he noted. "Feels like it doesn't want to stop. Disconcerting." We took a look under the cars, and where the Camaro had obvious ductwork to provide cool air to the front brakes, the Mustang had none.

So, yes, the Mustang turned a faster lap, but if it's not repeatable, is it really a win? Find a 2.23-mile autocross and you might have something, but in any road race, the Mustang is going to quickly fall behind.

"I think I'd go Camaro just because of the braking confidence," Pobst summarized. "I don't like that feeling of pushing hard and just not getting enough braking g's. The Mustang's more fun to drive because it's better balanced, and on the street it might be the Mustang because you don't brake that hard and the issue might not come up. It just won't stop on the track."

THE END?

After three rounds, the winner, by a closer margin than we ever expected, is the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. On the street and on the track, its solid chassis, well-controlled body motions, planted suspension, and unshakeable confidence edged it over the more powerful Shelby. Ford's Special Vehicles Team deserves enormous credit for the work they've done to tame the live rear axle and put the power to the ground, but the limit has been reached. We're staggered by how good the GT500 is, but unless it's on a drag strip, the ZL1 is just a little bit better.

It won't end here, though. Many of you probably jumped here to the end to find out who won, and you've already fired up your e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and MotorTrend.com accounts. You'll dissect this story and all the data and conclusions, looking to support your case. You'll defend or defame us; you'll quote other sources and you'll cancel subscriptions. The musclecar war will continue to rage no matter what we say, and not a single die-hard Mustang or Camaro fan will change camps. Then, when the next-generation Mustang and its long-awaited independent rear suspension debuts, followed by the next-generation, Alpha-platform Camaro, we'll do it all over again. We can't wait.

The Story Behind the Lap Times

Back in the days of simple stop watches, the GT500's half-sec lap time edge over the ZL1 would have been a clear-cut, slam-dunk result. The Mustang is the quicker car; here's your trophy, end of story. But these days, with sophisticated GPS test equipment strapped in, we see that their lap times were actually just the last words in an intense hundred-second saga. The actual story is vastly more nuanced.
Around Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca's historic 2.2-mile, 11-corner road course, these fastest-ever Mustang and Camaro were like two boxers with very different styles, battling back and forth for 12 rounds before the Mustang's exhausted arm was raised in victory. Why twelve?

Comparing their fastest flying laps in the hands of mph-maestro Randy Pobst, the two cars would have theoretically passed and repassed each other a dozen times before the checkered flag. And moreover, were the race stopped even shortly after the last turn -- turn 11 -- the Camaro would have been the victor. It took the GT500's thundering power down the last straight to turn the tables and settle the matter, ahead by 70 feet.

Where the GT500 was about power, the ZL1 was about composed handling grip. Down every single straight long enough for the Mustang to draw a breath, it was faster. And in every single corner presenting any sort of genuine handling challenge, the Camaro rushed through more quickly. Only in the simple, skidpad-like corners, was the Mustang competitive.

And through one of the most complex and challenging corners to be found anywhere in the world -- the famously diving and twisting Corkscrew -- the ZL1 was startlingly faster. Here, Randy was noticeably hesitant to unleash the Mustang's potential power exiting its cascading, second-half. Were you watching these two cars only through this spectacular brake-then left-then descend-then right, complex, you'd have bet good money that the Chevrolet would have the faster lap. Fascinating.

	2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1	2013 Ford Shelby GT500
POWERTRAIN/CHASSIS
DRIVETRAIN LAYOUT	Front engine, RWD	Front engine, RWD
ENGINE TYPE	Supercharged 90-deg V-8, alum block/heads	Supercharged 90-deg V-8, alum block/heads
VALVETRAIN	OHV, 2 valves/cyl	DOHC, 4 valves/cyl
DISPLACEMENT	376.0 cu in/6162 cc	354.7 cu in/5812 cc
COMPRESSION RATIO	9.1:1	9.0:1
POWER (SAE NET)	580 hp @ 6100 rpm	662 hp @ 6500 rpm
TORQUE (SAE NET)	556 lb-ft @ 3800 rpm	631 lb-ft @ 4000 rpm
REDLINE	6200 rpm	7000 rpm
WEIGHT TO POWER	7.0 lb/hp	5.8 lb/hp
TRANSMISSION	6-speed manual	6-speed manual
AXLE/FINAL-DRIVE RATIO	3.73:1/0.00:1	3.31:1/1.66:1
SUSPENSION, FRONT; REAR	Multi-link, coil springs, adj shocks anti-roll bar; multi-link, coil springs, adj shocks, anti-roll bar	Struts, coil springs, adj shocks, anti-roll bar; live axle, Panhard rod, coil springs, adj shocks, anti-roll bar
STEERING RATIO	16.1:1	15.7:1
TUNS LOCK-TO-LOCK	2.5	2.5
BRAKES, F;R	14.6-in vented disc; 14.4-in vented disc, ABS	15.0-in vented disc; 13.8-in vented disc, ABS
WHEELS, F;R	10.0 x 20-in; 11.0 x 20-in, cast aluminum	9.5 x 19-in; 9.5 x 20-in forged aluminum
TIRES, F;R	285/35ZR20 100Y; 305/35ZR20 104Y Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar G: 2	265/40ZR19 98Y; 285/35ZR20 92Y Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar G: 2
DIMENSIONS
WHEELBASE	112.3 in	107.1 in
TRACK, F/R	63.7/63.7 in	61.9/62.5 in
LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT	190.4 x 75.5 x 54.2 in	188.2 x 73.9 x 54.8 in
TURNING CIRCLE	37.7 ft	37.0 ft
CURB WEIGHT	4051 lb	3871 lb
WEIGHT DIST., F/R	52/48 %	57/43 %
SEATING CAPACITY	4	4
HEADROOM, F/R	37.4/35.3 in	38.5/34.7 in
LEGROOM, F/R	42.4/29.9 in	42.4/29.8 in
SHOULDER ROOM, F/R	56.9/42.5 in	55.3/51.6 in
CARGO VOLUME	11.3 cu ft	13.4 cu ft
TEST DATA
ACCELERATION TO MPH
0-30	1.6 sec	1.7 sec
0-40	2.2	2.3
0-50	2.9	2.8
0-60	3.8	3.5
0-70	4.8	4.4
0-80	6.0	5.3
0-90	7.3	6.3
0-100	8.7	7.7
PASSING, 45-65 MPH	1.7	1.6
QUARTER MILE	12.1 sec @ 117.4 mph	11.6 sec @ 125.7 mph
BRAKING, 60-0 MPH	108 ft	101 ft
LATERAL ACCELERATION	1.02 g (avg)	1.00 g (avg)
MT FIGURE EIGHT	23.9 sec @ 0.83 g (avg)	24.4 sec @ 0.83 g (avg)
2.2-MI ROAD COURSE LAP	1 min: 39.18 sec	1 min: 38.68 sec
TOP-GEAR REVS @ 60 MPH	1700 rpm	1300 rpm
CONSUMER INFO
BASE PRICE	$55,895	$54,995
PRICE AS TESTED	$56,365	$64,770
STABILITY/TRACTION CONTROL	Yes/Yes	Yes/Yes
AIRBAGS	Dual front, front side, front curtain	Dual front, front side, f/r side, front head, f/r head, front curtain, f/r curtain, front side/head; f/r side/head, front knee, driver knee, passenger knee, pedestrian
BASIC WARRANTY	3 yrs/36,000 miles	3 yrs/36,000 miles
POWERTRAIN WARRANTY	5 yrs/100,000 miles	5 yrs/60,000 miles
ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE	5 yrs/100,000 miles	5 yrs/Unlimited
FUEL CAPACITY	19.0 gal	16.0 gal
EPA CITY/HWY ECON	16/19 mpg	15/24 mpg
ENERGY CONSUMPTION, CITY/HWY	211/177 kW-hrs/100 miles	225/140 kW-hrs/100 miles
CO2 EMISSIONS	1.13 lb/mile	1.08 lb/mile
RECOMMENDED FUEL	Unleaded premium	Unleaded premium