On this episode of HOT ROD Unlimited
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MotorTranscript
00:00 Brand new Camaro ZL1, brand new Mustang GT500.
00:05 You've seen it before.
00:06 Pretty much everyone knows that car handles better, this one's faster in a straight line.
00:10 So we're not going to bother with that test.
00:12 Instead, we're a couple of muscle car guys, we're just going to find out which car's playing
00:16 more fun.
00:17 We're taking a road trip to Speed World Drag Strip in Arizona, which is at risk of closing,
00:22 and that can't happen.
00:23 So we're going to drag race these cars there and be really irresponsible along the way.
00:37 We're just installing radar detectors because the company doesn't pay for speeding tickets,
00:41 or bail.
00:42 In the patent, it just says, "Plug in a cigarette lighter, drive like a jerk."
00:56 Wow.
00:58 I've never had a radar detector before.
01:00 Ford conveniently put this 12-volt power outlet right in the middle of the dash to plug in
01:05 your radar detector.
01:06 I think they knew.
01:08 So my favorite thing about the Camaro, probably, from the driver's perspective, is the heads-up
01:13 display.
01:14 That's just cool.
01:16 Because some of these gauges, like the ones down here on the console, are completely useless.
01:21 Last thing I'm going to do at 160, 70, 80 miles an hour is look down to see how much
01:25 boost this thing's making.
01:27 But at least the heads-up display will tell me how fast I'm going right before I die.
01:31 It's good info.
01:33 I actually like the interior in the Mustang much better.
01:35 I can see the dash, which is a big problem for me in the Camaro.
01:39 The factory Recaro seats are awesome, and I really like the vintage '69-looking stitch
01:45 pattern on them.
01:47 The dashboard looks almost like a '67 or '8.
01:50 The steering wheel's cool.
01:51 I like that the bottom of it's flat, kind of racy.
01:53 It makes it easy to get in and out of the car.
01:55 Shift knob's cool.
01:57 This feels less plasticky than some of the other new cars I've been in.
02:00 If you're going to drop this much money on a car, it shouldn't feel like plastic.
02:04 It should caress you in soft, supple leather.
02:07 Or suede.
02:11 The shifter, however, fairly sub-average.
02:13 I have a hard time bang-shifting this thing.
02:16 It's notchy, like right before gear engagement.
02:18 It's almost like there's two motions to get in every gear.
02:22 It bugs me.
02:23 Fuel economy.
02:24 Why?
02:25 You know, it's interesting there's this big battle over which of these cars has better
02:30 top speed.
02:31 I know all the Ford guys are saying this Mustang runs 200 factory stock.
02:35 The thing is, there's really no place you can do that.
02:39 It takes like five miles, something like that, to get one of these things up to speed.
02:44 Up to 200.
02:47 That's high risk of both death and arrest.
02:51 Like high risk.
02:52 So we're basically fiddling around with what they're like to drive on the street.
02:56 Drag strip.
02:57 Having fun.
02:58 Sliding around.
02:59 Doing burnouts.
03:00 Let's be professionals about this.
03:08 Professionals about this?
03:09 There's no part of this show that's professional.
03:10 I was hoping you'd tell me how to act like one.
03:12 Okay.
03:13 Well, act like a guy trying to find out which one of these cars sounds better.
03:16 Alright.
03:17 Okay.
03:18 I have a feeling we're going to get real used to this scenario.
03:45 Gas station.
03:48 I'm prepared for science.
03:51 We have the three basic styles of road trip cups.
03:54 You have your 44 ouncer, your 32, and your tapered 44, or 32 or whatever that is.
04:01 And the thing about these cars is that the cup holder's in the console and it always
04:04 either isn't big enough or it hits your arm while you're shifting.
04:08 Or it won't hold it.
04:09 Okay, there's actually two different diameters of cup holders in the Mustang.
04:13 And I have to say it's doing a mighty fine job of holding the tapered cup.
04:18 Here, hand me the bladder buster.
04:20 I sense a fail coming on.
04:21 Yeah, I'm going to call this acceptable.
04:24 That's good.
04:25 Now let's go with the full on 44 ouncer.
04:27 It does fit in the rear cup holder.
04:29 So the only next challenge is whether you can bang shift with that in there or not.
04:33 Okay, moving on to the Camaro.
04:34 We'll start easy.
04:35 Oh, it also has two different diameters, except for in this case, the large one's in the front.
04:40 Okay.
04:42 That's looking pretty good.
04:43 That's looking pretty good.
04:44 Although you will note, there is no chance you would fit two of these in the car.
04:48 That's something we need to check on the Mustang.
04:49 If you have a buddy with you, that's not going to work.
04:52 See, you try and get this in there and that's just, that's not cool.
04:55 The medium fits in.
04:56 Now let's go for the bladder buster.
04:58 Nope.
04:59 Fail.
05:00 Camaro is fail on bladder buster.
05:03 All right.
05:04 Well, all that's left is the bang shift test.
05:08 Oh, you missed the second.
05:16 Oh, that was bad.
05:20 Okay, cup holder test, fail.
05:26 Suede seats are not going to be that good.
05:33 I didn't mangle my cup, but I did miss second in a horrible way.
05:36 Yuck.
05:37 So, I guess the conclusion there is that you can drive these things with the cups in it
05:43 as long as you don't want to be a hot rodder.
05:45 I'm not a greedy guy.
06:08 I don't ask for a lot.
06:09 All I wanted to do was go drag racing tonight.
06:11 I know.
06:12 But we made it.
06:13 We're going to Speed World.
06:14 Made it just in time for the rain.
06:15 Yeah, I made it just in time for the killer thunderstorm, which isn't happening right
06:22 now, but it got wet enough that they had to shut down the track for the night.
06:26 So, we're not going to be able to run the Camaro and the Mustang.
06:29 But we're having fun anyway.
06:30 We'll figure out something to do.
06:36 Just kidding.
06:37 We're going racing.
06:38 It is the next day.
06:39 It is not thunderstorming.
06:41 And the bitchin' guys here at Speed World opened up the track on a special deal so that
06:44 we could make some laps.
06:45 We're putting on drag radials.
06:46 We got these killer Mickey Thompsons and Ford Racing sent us some wheels for the Mustang.
06:50 We got some used wheels for the ZL1.
06:52 We're going to have sticky meats.
06:54 Hook these things up.
06:57 So, competition to see who can drive them quicker, right?
07:00 You're going down.
07:01 Okay.
07:02 I bank gears like nobody.
07:03 I do too.
07:04 I just miss them when I'm driving the Mustang.
07:06 That's a problem.
07:07 These are going to heat, soak, and slow down.
07:08 So whoever drives each car first is going to win.
07:11 So who's going to drive what first?
07:12 You miss gears in the GT500 and the Camaro's probably slower.
07:16 So let's just rock, paper, scissors.
07:18 Okay.
07:19 Rock, paper, scissors.
07:20 Smash!
07:21 Mustang!
07:22 Okay.
07:23 First drag race with Freiburger.
07:24 154 degree inlet air temp.
07:26 Not good.
07:27 None of that matters if you can't find second gear, dude.
07:29 I might not ever find second gear in this thing.
07:31 I hope for your sake you have some sort of strategy.
07:34 I'm not going to get fancy until I can figure out where the second gear is on this little
07:38 doohickey in the console here.
07:40 I don't blame you.
07:42 Loser buys dinner.
07:45 And I'd like a steak.
07:46 Thank you.
07:47 I'm going to win.
08:12 And that's what happens when you forget to turn the launch control on.
08:29 You lose, punk ass, and you're buying dinner.
08:31 Woohoo!
08:32 Oh no, that's by average at the end of the day.
08:35 That's not this one path.
08:36 Oh no, that was that one path.
08:38 You lose, you're buying dinner.
08:40 Woohoo!
08:41 You're a cheating SOB.
08:42 You went red by almost three tenths of a second.
08:44 That's a test day.
08:46 That's why God invented Christmas trees, to keep guys from leaving early.
08:48 Yeah, see the RPM limit on the launch control does not work.
08:52 A 2360 foot and a 20 for you.
08:55 Here's what sucks is I kicked your ass all the way to a thousand feet and then had to
08:59 shift into fourth right before the lights and that's when you catch me.
09:02 If I didn't have to shift one more time down there, I'd be winning by a lot.
09:07 Seriously.
09:08 If you're 1269 and you're walking around cocky, 1270 and I'm even arguing with you?
09:12 That's what guys who come in second say to themselves to make themselves feel better.
09:16 So you're winning!
09:17 So you're plenty proud of your 1269 out of that 11 second car.
09:20 Oh, hell yeah.
09:21 I keep looking at the inlet air temperature, which this tells you on the dash, it's 160
09:26 degrees when I leave the starting line.
09:28 Blowers don't like that.
09:30 This thing's not making power.
09:31 I didn't know Africa was this sticky.
09:59 It's pretty sticky.
10:01 Explain to me why it's this sticky and we couldn't make either car hook up.
10:04 Well, it's a matter of physics.
10:06 It's 150 degree track temperature is part of the problem.
10:09 Physics.
10:10 And it was 113 degrees out and making no power.
10:12 Physics.
10:13 Yeah, so essentially we're disappointed in our performance at the drag strip, but I think
10:17 Finnegan's got to be more disappointed than I am because I did run the lowest ET, the
10:22 highest mile an hour and had the best reaction time.
10:24 So I win.
10:26 Which car were you in?
10:27 The lighter one with the more horsepower?
10:28 We both drove both of them, right?
10:30 That was it.
10:31 We both drove both.
10:32 You made 87 laps in the Mustang and right at the end went, here, this thing's heat soaked,
10:35 make one or two.
10:36 Well, but it didn't matter how many laps you made when you miss every gear on every pass.
10:40 You know, he misses first.
10:42 It's so bad.
10:46 You got nothing.
10:47 I'm sore.
10:48 You got nothing.
10:49 I'm sore.
10:50 Yeah, we proved it.
10:51 You're a Camaro driver.
10:52 Oh yeah.
10:53 That's what we proved.
10:54 I kick ass in the Camaro.
10:56 You're okay in the Mustang.
10:57 So bottom line, the cars are way slower than they should have been because of track conditions.
11:02 We ran 12.44 in the Mustang and 12.69 in the Camaro.
11:06 Okay, so that's roughly what, eight tenths slower than either one of them should be?
11:10 Yeah, I've been three tenths faster in that Mustang than we went today.
11:15 But dude, it's 105 degrees out.
11:17 So now we make our own fun on the way home, right?
11:20 Burnouts and donuts.
11:21 Donuts.
11:22 If I don't blow out a flip flop on the way out of here.
11:23 Good luck with that.
11:24 All right.
11:24 Hey, we lived.
11:53 We didn't get arrested, even though your cloud of Goodyear smoke is still hanging over
11:58 Arizona someplace.
11:59 These cars should have come with respirators.
12:01 That's all I'm saying, dude.
12:03 They're good at making smoke.
12:04 That's what they're both really good for.
12:05 So overall, you're still taking the Camaro?
12:07 Oh yeah.
12:08 I'm taking it home right now, actually.
12:10 Okay.
12:11 He's a Camaro guy, I'm a Mustang guy.
12:12 We have one more day with this car.
12:13 I'm driving it home.
12:14 It's hard to look out at my Super B and go, "Oh yeah, that's when muscle cars were great."
12:17 It's like, man.
12:18 No, muscle cars are really good right now.
12:20 Yeah.
12:21 Really, really good.
12:22 They're not going to win this unless they put more power in a mixture.
12:25 So basically you can't lose.
12:26 You buy the red car and you win.
12:28 Yes.
12:28 Yes.
12:29 Yes.
12:29 Yes.