Comparison: 2016 Chevrolet Camaro RS vs. 2016 Ford Mustang EcoBoost
Turbo Bronies: Childish fun with cars we’re supposed to hate
We all have at least one dream car, and
probably several. Most of them are dreams because they’re effectively
unobtainable, but we each have at least one attainable car on the list.
Something we’ll buy when we land that new job or big promotion. Back
when I was in high school, my attainable dream had rear-wheel drive, a
manual transmission, and a big V-8. That V-8 made just over 300 hp.
That
car was a Pontiac Firebird WS6, and it hit 60 mph in 5 seconds flat on
its way to a 13.5-second quarter mile at 107.4 mph per our records. Just
15 years ago, 300 hp was a lot, and it took a V-8 or a lot of boost to
get it. In my car club, a 13-second quarter mile was damn quick for a
street car, and breaking into the 12s was a major accomplishment. Only
the hottest of hot rodders ran 11s.That was then. This is now. We have before us two turbocharged four-cylinder ponycars, a Mustang and a Camaro, that can nearly keep pace with my teenage dream. The Camaro makes 275 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque. The Mustang: 310 hp and 320 lb-ft. (The Firebird, in case you were wondering, made 305 hp and 335 lb-ft.) The Camaro hits 60 mph in 5.2 seconds and runs a 13.9-second quarter mile at 101.0 mph, and the Mustang, 230 pounds heavier, needs 6.3 seconds for the former and 14.5 seconds for the latter at 98.0 mph. Welcome to the future.
2016 Ford Mustang Coupe
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This is the only objective measure in which
the Camaro has an advantage. The Mustang is hampered in two ways, the
first being the weight penalty. The second is a strange tendency to pull
power after an upshift if it’s shifted too fast. It was tough to get a
perfect run, and even then, the more powerful Mustang was still a second
behind the lighter Camaro.
It’s no academic exercise, either, as
the engines have entirely different personalities. The Mustang is all
low-end, giving it lots of grunt off the line and exiting a corner and
making it easier and more pleasant to drive around town. Unfortunately,
the party’s over just north of 5,000 rpm, where it falls completely on
its face. The Camaro, meanwhile, is the polar opposite. It’s gutless
below 3,000 rpm, then the boost comes on like a light switch. From
there, the party doesn’t stop until the tach does. It’s harder and less
enjoyable to drive in town, but when it’s time to go fast, it’s way more
fun.This is no academic exercise. Both engines have entirely different personalities.
“The
Mustang has better low-end torque, but honestly, I prefer the way the
Camaro’s engine behaves,” Jonny Lieberman said. “I happen to enjoy
engines where the horsepower comes on strong toward the top of the revs,
unlike the Mustang’s 2.3-liter turbo, which feels laggardly compared to
the Chevy’s revver.”
I’m
with Lieberman. Better to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow,
and wringing out the Camaro for all it’s worth is a lot more fun than
short-shifting the Mustang. Both cars, as you might expect, benefit from
having their Sport modes activated, though the sluggish Ford
benefits more. (It also gets a Track mode the Camaro doesn’t.) Sport is
a must in the Mustang and a why not in the Camaro. The Camaro’s must:
opening the exhaust. It’s no V-8, but it sounds pretty good for a
four-banger and way better than the mumbling Mustang.
That said, the Camaro is watching the
Mustang’s taillights in anything other than straight-line stuff. That
is, except in the braking test, where the Mustang stops 10 feet shorter.
Otherwise, though, the Mustang’s out in front. On the skidpad, the
Mustang pulls 0.95 g average to the Camaro’s 0.91. In our figure-eight
test, it’s another easy victory for the Ford with a 24.2-second lap at
0.79 g average to the Chevy’s 25.1-second lap at 0.76 g average.
How
the slower, heavier Mustang manages these feats comes down to just two
things: tires and brakes. Our Mustang had the optional $1,995
Performance package, which includes summer tires and four-piston brake
calipers in addition to a better axle ratio and tuning improvements. The
Camaro, though, doesn’t have a performance package. The closest you can
get on a four-cylinder car is a front-only brake upgrade and a set of
high-performance all-season tires, which we spec’d. This severely
handicaps the Camaro’s braking and handling performance, and the
differences were obvious both on the test track and the street. On the
figure eight, the Mustang braked shockingly hard, turned in to a corner
immediately and precisely, understeered mildly in the middle, then put
the power down at the exit. The Camaro, by contrast, had a soft brake
pedal, understeered all the way from corner entry to exit, and power
oversteered a bit on the way out. (At least there’s a consolation
prize.)
These behaviors make themselves known in
the real world, too. The Mustang can be driven as fast as its motor
will carry it down a winding road with complete confidence. The Camaro
can keep up with the Mustang thanks mostly to its acceleration
advantage, but it feels as if you’re driving it at the tires’ absolute
limit all the time. Put the Camaro in front, and it’ll have mirrors full
of Mustang all the time. When the Camaro simply can’t go any faster
around a corner, the Mustang is sweating but not panting. On the plus
side, the wimpy tires do allow the Camaro to do way better burnouts.
Now is a good time to point out the role reversal going on here. Put V-8s in these cars, and it’s the opposite story. The Mustang is too soft and heavy to keep up with the faster, lighter, nimbler Camaro.We have before us two turbocharged ponycars that can keep pace with my teenage dream.
The difference in braking performance is also
apparent in canyon driving. The Mustang’s brakes have incredible bite
right at first engagement, and they never let up. There’s excellent
pedal feel to boot. The Camaro, meanwhile, has a longer pedal that feels
soft up top but firms up when you really stand on it, which, although
nicer in traffic, isn’t exactly what we’re looking for in a “Performance
Brake Upgrade.”
The cars have other differences, as well. The
Mustang may go around a corner quicker, but it feels heavier and softer
doing it. The damping just isn’t firm enough for a Performance package,
and it affects your confidence until you get used to it. The Camaro, by
contrast, is beautifully balanced and light on its feet. Although the
spec chart shows only a 1 percent difference in weight distribution
between the two, the Mustang, its engine sitting on the front axle
rather than behind as in the Camaro, feels unsurprisingly heavier on the
nose.You can feel it in the steering. The Camaro’s, when the tires stick, has more feel to it. The Mustang turns in better, and although it has little feel, it offers three modes to dial in the right amount of weight for your driving style.
There’s
also the matter of the shifters. Both cars use a same six-speed manual
transmission, but Ford has worked out a better shift linkage. The throw
is just a bit shorter and crisper, and the decision to use a manual
reverse lockout is laudable. In the Camaro, it’s all too easy to blow
through the reverse detent when attempting a 3-2 downshift, resulting in
frustration, cursing, and lost time.
Then come the little, practical things. Both
cars have small trunks, but the Mustang’s is bigger and has a bigger
opening. Neither car has real back seats, but the Mustang’s will hold
bigger children than the Camaro’s. The Ford also has more than one USB
port (and in a usable location, no less) and actual storage cubbies to
put your stuff in. On the other hand, the Mustang has Sync. For all the
usability and functionality improvements to Sync3, it still crashed and
stayed that way for most of a day until Lieberman rebooted his phone,
which he’d been charging and attempting to use Bluetooth phone and audio
streaming with. Chevy’s MyLink, however, kept changing audio inputs;
every time my Google Maps app played a voice prompt over the Bluetooth
connection, it started playing music on my phone rather than the
satellite radio station I’d been listening to. Fuel economy, ostensibly
the reason you’re buying one of these four-bangers, is effectively the
same on paper and in the real world.
Oh, and we took them to a
racetrack, too. Yeah, yeah, I know. These are the four-bangers, and no
one will track them, blah, blah, blah. We did, and you should, too. Both
cars were a riot on the track, able to use all of their power all the
time and benefiting mightily from lower curb weights and better balance
than their V-8 counterparts. Of course, the Camaro was still handicapped
by its tires, but you can fix that (see page TK). As is, the Mustang
won the day by 0.86 second at the Streets of Willow Springs, owing
mostly to its stopping power and cornering grip.“The [braking] response of the Camaro was so slow and inconsistent compared to the Mustang,” Randy Pobst said; he referred to the Camaro’s on-track braking more than once as “frightening.” Things didn’t get much better in the corners. “The whole turning phase is vastly inferior to the Mustang. The braking doesn’t give me as much entry grip as I want. The tires have less grip, more squirm, more slide, more slip angles everywhere. It’s less accurate and less fun.” Otherwise, though, he liked it. “Cornering speeds were lower, but it was a little bit more drifty under power, which I actually kinda enjoyed. … The Camaro engine is just more satisfying. It pulls stronger.”
The Mustang didn’t get off easy, either. “The
engine felt lazy,” Pobst said. “I thought I felt the thing pulling
power. Seemed worse on later laps. The oil temp came up right to the
yellow.” It didn’t go like he wanted, but it sure did stop. “I
absolutely love the brake response; it’s unbelievable how quick it gets
to its max braking g. I can go so late on the brakes, way later than the
Camaro. I think that’s a record for me braking as late as I did and
still making it in many places around the course. It loves a
trail-brake. It rotates just a little bit.” All that despite complaints
about the weight.
Even with all the obvious differences, Lieberman
and I found ourselves staring down a tie. “This is one of the more
evenly matched comparison tests in recent memory,” he said. “I’m split
51 to 49 percent, and if I stare at either of the cars long enough, I
can convince myself it’s the actual winner.” I felt the same. The Camaro
was unquestionably more fun to drive, but it was kneecapped by its
tires. The Mustang was the better all-around car, but its lethargic
engine and extra poundage let it down. Even if the Camaro could give my
old dream Firebird a run for its money on the strip and either pony
could run circles around the Pontiac on a race track, neither quite felt
like the obvious dream car in this test. Maybe it’s because all my
dreams have eight or more cylinders, or maybe it’s because a lot more
than 300 hp is attainable on a middle-class salary these days. Really,
though, it’s a question of priorities. Dream cars are irrational. These
two are logical alternatives that ask practical questions. How fast do
you really need to go? How much money do you really want to spend on gas
every month? And how many commutes are you really going to put up with
that ride quality?
After a great deal of
standing around staring at the cars and trading observations that
started with “but what about,” we settled on a winner: the Mustang. It’s
the better car in nearly every measure by some margin, and as much as
we hate to lose a stoplight drag, there’s no arguing it’s got the Camaro
licked everywhere else. A set of real summer tires for the Camaro would
change everything, but Chevy doesn’t sell them, and the Camaro suffers
for it.
Or, as Lieberman put it: “Not satisfied that dull tires are enough to sink the Chevy? The Mustang has a real handbrake. Winner!”