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CHRIS HARRIS: Couldn't get more American if we tried--
Manhattan skyline and the two muscle cars of the moment--
Camaro ZL1 and Mustang GT500.
Between them, they have 1,259 horsepower.
And yet they cost a lot less than a 997 Turbo S.
So I've got two days with these cars.
I want to drive them in New York, because that's a fun
thing to do.
And then I want to drive them on a circuit.
And then I want to reach some conclusions
about the two of them.
As a European, I'm massively excited.
Because they're so powerful, and they
represent so much value.
Let's get it on.
So is this the worst place on the planet to drive a car?
MALE SPEAKER: To drive?
CHRIS HARRIS: Could be, couldn't it?
MALE SPEAKER: Yeah, I think so.
CHRIS HARRIS: Could be.
Anyhow, at least I've got a Camaro ZL1.
I suppose I'd better get that straight first, haven't I?
Am I going to call it a ZL1 or a Zed L1?
I suppose, being in America, I ought to call it a ZL1.
Luckily and handily for these purposes, General Motors has
decided to detune the ZR1 Corvette engine
and put it in a Camaro.
And it's only got 588 horsepower.
Get that?
Detuned to 588.
566 foot-pounds of torque.
And I'm going to be able to demonstrate about, oh, seven
of those, I would have thought,
where we're going now.
Initial thoughts, then?
It's not a difficult car to drive slowly, this.
It's not a difficult car at all.
Three petals, clutch is fine, gearbox is light.
We forget that, don't we, that if you had a car with this
much power 15 years ago-- actually, they didn't exist,
did they-- but a mega horsepower car had awful
slackness in the gearshift, and the whole transmission
moved around on rubber mounts and it felt horrible.
This doesn't feel like that.
It's a little bit of slot.
But it's tight.
And it's easy to drive.
I like the cabin too.
This thing is $48,000 basic.
So it's kind of slightly well-equipped 325i BMW money.
And you get 588 horsepower.
I don't have very good form with New York City.
I've been here once before and I got off the plane, had a
good afternoon, and then the lights went off.
This was August, 2003--
I think it was-- when they had the blackout.
I got stuck here for two days.
I spent $500 to sleep on some stranger's floor one night.
So I don't have much good history.
But I do find it a great place to come on [INAUDIBLE].
And it's good for cars too.
You see some really interesting cars, because
people just seem to use some old, eclectic stuff and leave
it on the street side.
This morning I saw a BMW E28 525e.
I was just cooing all over it.
People thought I was mad.
But it looked so incongruous and cool next to all the other
new, modern cars.
Ah, look.
G63 or G55.
G55.
Are you allowed to drive a G55 if you've not got a Russian
passport and a *** habit?
[LAUGHTER]
MALE SPEAKER: Getting a lot of looks around here, though, in
these two cars.
That's for sure.
CHRIS HARRIS: That's what it's all about though, isn't it?
They are partly about being seen and heard, aren't they?
They're pretty good at it too.
I'm at a red light and it's clear road ahead of us.
So the temptation is to make a lot of noise.
But I don't know, is that a bad thing to do in New York?
What's it like in first gear?
[ENGINE SOUNDS]
CHRIS HARRIS: It's quite quick.
I went a bit more than 30 there.
MALE SPEAKER: What's the speed limit here?
CHRIS HARRIS: It's a lovely thing to tool around in.
I like it.
The seat is nice.
They've been quite clever here.
Everything that you touch has got sort of Alcantara on it.
So all the contact points-- there's a stumpy little gear
lever here which looks like it was just
nicked from an M5 actually.
It feels great, because it's all quite a soft touch.
I like this thing.
Strangely when I said I liked it, everyone back at the Drive
office just went, [GROAN], it's a Camaro.
I don't like them.
It's wrong.
They're all very pro-Mustang.
Of course, being a complete foreigner, I don't really
understand the complexities and the subtleties of the Ford
versus Chevrolet thing.
I just want to take them on merit, really, and judge them.
This, to me, feels like a nicely resolved car.
So I'm going to spend a bit of time making sure that it
shifts gear well at low speed, that the
engine's got usable torque.
It may have massive numbers, but it's up to you how much
you use of it.
And that's all I'm going to say about
driving the ZL1 slowly.
Because we need to go and do some stupid stuff with it,
really, don't we?
So this is a Mustang GT500.
Its numbers are so extraordinary, I'm not even
going to mention them now.
I'm just going to sort of settle myself into the beast.
And then we'll discuss the numbers in a minute.
Because they are, frankly, [BLEEP]
ridiculous.
This is a bit brutal, isn't it?
Jesus.
Talk about a short shift.
To quote the best motoring journalist cliche of all, it's
like a rifle bolt.
[BLEEP]
me, that's fast.
It's got loads of grunt.
I feel like I'm sitting in a Range Rover, though.
I'm too high relative to the steering wheel.
If I was to get twirly in oversteer, I could probably
shave my testicles with the bottom of the wheel.
It's actually not the easiest car to drive slowly, whereas
the ZL1 really does just feel to me like any sort of three
pedal, American, fast car.
This is a bit more difficult.
The clutch bite point is high.
Because of this seat being in the wrong position, my angle
of attack from my knee down to the petals is a bit funny.
I'm sitting too high relative to the wheel.
And of course there's that power figure.
We'll come to it now.
671 horsepower.
Say that to yourself.
671 horsepower through, effectively, a live axle.
It's just barking, isn't it?
Who was it who said, sort of post-Lehman that Ford and GM
were going to have to sort their *** out and stop making
muscle cars.
Well, a few years later, we're at the 670
horsepower Mustang mark.
So someone called that wrong, didn't they?
Torque--
631 foot-pounds.
It's a monster.
It's a much, much, more powerful machine than that yob
yellow thing behind me, which itself is crazy enough.
I love it.
And the price of these things-- they are $35 grand
cars if they were sold in the UK at the same price as they
are over here.
So you could have the thick end of 700 horsepower for the
price of a sort of mid-style, three series BMW.
Isn't that something to be celebrated?
When you get to that sort of level, I don't really care
about the way they handle or whether they're as
good as a BMW M3.
It makes no odds whatsoever, does it?
Obviously, I'm a limey tourist here today.
We've driven around New York.
And we've seen a few bits and bobs.
But J.R. said, if there's one place you want to go to, where
would it be?
Times Square, all that stuff-- not really very interested.
I like the Chrysler building, but I've seen that before.
And I've been at the Empire States.
And we're in cars.
But there was one place I wanted to visit, and I've
always wanted to visit ever since I first saw a little
program called The Sopranos.
I wanted to go to the Bing.
Who wouldn't want to go to the Bing?
Not go into the Bing and use its services, obviously,
because I don't need a happy ending as we're speaking now.
But here we are-- the Bing.
[ENGINE REVVING]
CHRIS HARRIS: Boy do these cars get some attention.
They look and sound the part.
And most of Manhattan appears to adore them,
even the local police.
MALE SPEAKER 2: So that's three pull-overs in
literally one hour.
And every time you've gotten out of it.
CHRIS HARRIS: There's something to be said for
mooching and posing in them.
Because they're not actually that good on the open road.
I tell a lie.
That's unfair on the ZL.
The GT500 skips over bumps, the power delivery is pretty
savage, and the exhaust noise is grating.
The ZL is much more composed.
In fact, it's just a nicer fast road car--
quieter and easier.
But do you buy muscle to be easier and quieter?
I don't know.
Let's go to the track and wreck some tires before we
even attempt to answer that one.
OK, we're at Monticello Motor Club now and finally have the
chance to use some of this massive amount of horsepower.
We're in the ZL1 first, the weakest by some margin.
How often do you say that of a car that has 580 horsepower?
This is quite a heavy brute though--
1,860 kilograms.
So I don't expect, given that it's about 85 degrees outside,
to be able to pound around for too long.
So let's go and do a couple of laps and just
see how the car behaves.
And for me as a European, I have to say, people like me
have quite a jaundiced view of these American performance
cars-- too big, too heavy, and not really on a
par with the Europeans.
But these are quite serious performance cars.
They've got a lot of performance.
Motor's great.
But it doesn't feel like it's got 580 to me.
Maybe that's because it is so heavy.
Brake pedal-- a little bit blunt.
To me, feels like sort of M3 performance and a bit.
I've got the safety systems on at the moment.
And it's really working hard at the back axle.
We have got oversteer whenever we want it, boys.
Bodes well for [INAUDIBLE].
Do you know what?
As a European, this does not feel at all bad, this thing.
It's not the last word.
But it's pretty good.
It's really pretty good.
I have to say, initial thoughts--
this car has hugely benefited from having an
independent rear end.
It doesn't feel like the most sophisticated rear end.
But it does feel--
well, I know it goes over bumps in the middle of a
corner and doesn't get spat sideways.
And the chassis is not being completely overpowered by this
engine, not by a long shot actually.
It feels like quite a nice balanced package.
Yes.
Now we can let it move around a bit.
But its advantage over the Ford is it's got 305 section
rear tire-- so less power, more mechanical grip.
It's quite a useful recipe, isn't it?
I'm going full power here.
I can't make the thing drift.
A surprising, slightly strange car we have here, Thomas.
I'm properly trying to back it in, but it won't do it.
Maybe the ambient temperature isn't helping the old girl.
Here's a good question to ask yourself
on a Thursday afternoon.
What does 671 horsepower within a body weighing 1,747
kilograms feel like when it's transmitted to the
road via a live axle?
Welcome to the GT500.
I'm leaving all the systems on to start with.
First thing's first.
This seat--
I'm sitting too high.
I've already got traction issues and I've just used
about a third of throttle.
Yeah, this is going to be a handful, this thing, isn't it?
What an engine.
So much more powerful than the Camaro engine.
Yeah, this car is dominated by its motor.
It's an engine looking for a chassis.
I'm not convinced it's found it in this
particular car, either.
Now we caught them-- but the axle is absolutely having a
massive tantrum with itself.
God, it just feels so much faster in a straight line.
Braking--
OK.
Has it got a spool diff on it or something?
It feels like a drift car.
I think it's extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary.
And anyone from my continent that sniffs at it not being as
dignified as an M3 can saw it off, because this is properly
exciting, this thing, properly exciting.
The engine just keeps going.
And rarely has a car said to me, as clearly and as loudly,
please turn the traction control off.
Please turn the traction control off.
This is a factory car--
670 horsepower.
It's not some tuner nonsense.
This comes with a warranty.
I do like it.
I do like it.
It's crude and it's--
but you know what?
For all that crudity, it's just much more exciting and
much faster than the Camaro.
Where there's no bumps, the live axle isn't as much of a
problem as you'd expect.
But when there are bumps, it's not ideal.
There.
It's making me wait an eternity to get on the gas.
It's so much fun though.
And it's the same price as a loaded up 325i.
These are actually quite different cars.
The Ford is lighter, more powerful,
and generally crazier.
The Camaro is much more rounded.
In as much as I could imagine living with it every day the
way I could, say, an Audi RS or an AMG Mercedes, how you
judge them clearly depends on your Chevy or Ford
affiliation.
But once you've chosen your tattoo, it actually comes down
to what you expect from a modern muscle car.
Because I'm a limey not regularly exposed to this
stuff, I wanted to rip my arms off and scare my children.
And the ZL doesn't do that.
It's too good for that.
Despite giving away power and weight, it was two seconds
faster around Monticello in my hands.
But in the land of muscle, bad is good.
And the GT500 is the baddest of all.
Now how do I import one to the UK again?