Ford Mustang vs Chevy Camaro - Who won each decade? (1960s - TODAY)

the car world is full of rivalries ferrari versus ford subaru vs mitsubishi volkswagen versus environmental law but no rivalry has as much legacy as much passion and as much contention as the 50-plus year slugfest between the father of pony cars and the one designed specifically to beat it the mustang and the camaro in this episode of versus we are gonna put these two icons of american auto head to head and header to header [Music] we have five rounds each worth five points to decide once and for all which is the better pony car i'll be guiding you along the way trying to stay as unbiased as possible i know there are some strong opinions about these two cars but at the end of this video if you're not totally convinced you'll at least know more about mustangs and camaros than you'll ever need there's plenty of ways we could break it down but i think the easiest way to understand the growth of these two icons is to break the rivalry down by decade going through the 60s the 70s the 80s the 90s and finishing off with the 2000s and beyond so let's go ahead and start round one in the 1960s ah yes the 60s an era of the beatles kennedy and faking moon landings ford's general manager and vice president at the time lee iacocca predicted a new market coming from baby boomers now hitting the age and level of entitlement of buying their first car he and a secret team within ford set out to design the mustang at launch it was such a success it still holds a record for most production models sold within an initial model year the 1964 and a half mustangs were such a hit dealerships had extra security other companies scrambled to make a competitor for the recently formed market the mustang filled a niche yes but it also had a design that defined that niche the body lines alone were enough to get youngsters into the ford lots it wasn't until 1967 two and a half years later that chevrolet released their counter the camaro it was designed from the ground up to defeat the mustang it had bigger engine offerings a meaner look and more trim options if the mustang had the looks to hook you the camaro had the looks to slay you it looked like the camaro was poised to take the throne as the top pony car but in 1967 we saw the first [Music] mustang gt500 carol shelby stuffed a 7-liter v8 from a police interceptor into the sporty two plus two and the already lightened body was now holding 355 horsepower within a year this engine was available from the factory and was known as the cobra jet chevy had an answer to the cobra jet however in 1969 they brought out two 7-liter engines for the camaro an iron block called the l72 and an aluminum block you may have heard of called the zl1 it embarrassed mustangs and even small block corvettes it was a second and a half quicker in a quarter mile than the gt500 and to this day the 1969 zl1 is one of the rarest cars of its type with a recent example selling for over 450 000 these two cars came out of the gate so strong it makes sense why they still have such a following today the camaro was powerful beautiful and holds more value today than similarly spec mustangs for that i'm gonna give it four points but for selling a literal world record of units and for single-handedly starting a new segment of automobile that has viewed the world around as iconically american i can't do anything less than give the mustang five points we're ending the first round with the mustang ahead by one point but let's see what the future holds for the camaro welcome to the 70s a time of bell bottoms tie dye and environmental activism the big block engines of the 60s were being abandoned for smaller more fuel-efficient and eco-friendly power plants the early 70s had some strong showings from both companies in the form of models like the mustang mach 1 and the camaro z28 chevy continued to make variations of the f-body camaro the camaro ss350 had been called one of the top 10 best cars in the world by rhoden track in 1971. while ford was making the mach 1 chevy was churning out the equally worthy split bumper era of camaro it's not everybody's favorite look but after the first gen camaro i think it's a pretty high bar that's been set it's honestly not that bad the two rivals were now pretty much matching each other in sales numbers but something was looming just around the corner i think we may have mentioned it on this channel before it's a small event in world history called the oil crisis gas prices more than quadrupled when opec called for an embargo and detroit was hit hard ford had actually been working on a more economic version of the mustang to compete with the likes of the 240z and the celica the mustang 2 was announced two months before the oil crisis hit and it put ford yet again in an amazing position in the market in 1974 the mustang ii outsold the 74 camaro two to one it was based on the ford pinto and it initially sold without a v8 option the base model was an i4 making 89 horsepower which doesn't sound very all-american muscle car hold my beard i'm going to do a burnout e but that's not what ford thought the american people needed anymore the oil crisis did affect the camaro as well with the 1975 six-cylinder base model coughing up a painfully small 105 horsepower still though the v8 was sputtering out more power than the mustang in any configuration in the late 70s that sales ratio that the mustang had been dominating had now swung the other way with the camaro selling almost 100 000 units more than the mustang in 1978. honestly the 70s are a really depressing time for american cars and it hurts to talk about the decade too much gradually the impact of the oil crisis lessened the mustang and the camaro both began to stretch their legs again the mustang 2 is almost not worthy of the badge in my book and with the base model being in the double digits of horsepower i can only give within one point the camaro didn't fare much better either but for holding on to a little bit of what made it cool in the first place i'm gonna give it two points in this decade which means we are all tied up as we time travel forward another 10 years lots of good things began to happen in the 80s we even got a little baby james pumphrey look at him he's a more power baby ford abandoned the pinto platform of the mustang 2 in 1979 opting for the larger fox platform originally developed for the ford fairmont it's not much to look at but it can get the job done luckily we didn't see the gt name tarnished and the 5.0 v8 came back swinging with 157 horsepower wait wait did i read that right yeah 157 horsepower meanwhile the camaro got a new generation as well the hard lines of the 80s camaro are so era perfect i'm surprised the factory didn't offer it in two-tone neon pink and lime it was now 500 pounds lighter than the second gen it got coils for rear suspension instead of that single leaf spring and for the first time ever the camaro was a hatchback i love the idea of a hatchback muscle car it's perfect for when the grocery store is exactly a quarter mile away from your home in a straight line unfortunately if you got the base model you wouldn't get home before your 17 tubs of haagen-dazs all melted the iron duke as this pontiac developed four banger was known made 90 horsepower and was originally made for cars like the astray and the sunburg powering the camaro it pulled from 0 to 60 in 20 seconds that's insane this is one of the slowest sports cars of all time and it's a camaro do you know how long 20 seconds is it's this long [Music] 12 seconds later luckily for both cars though this was just the 70s oil crisis still clinging to the minds of engineers as the 80s continued it started to loosen its grip in 1985 the camaro was back above 200 horsepower in the form of the iroc z the iroc stood for international race of champions and the z stood for what it always stands for on cars nothing the iraq z got stiffer suspension and utilized a tuned port injection system which was the most tunable versatile and forgiving fuel delivery system of the time this system of chevy's quickly became a hot rodders best friend while the camaro was racing the mustang was doing more official work the 5.0 mustang had been chosen by the california highway patrol for a pursuit vehicle the chp approached ford about this specifically because the camaros they had tested had camshaft issues at pursuit speeds this brought about the mustang ssp it was faster and lighter than consumer 5.0 depending on which agency bought them they could be outfitted with anything from power windows to freaking roll cages the us air force even had one designed to land spy planes that's right the u.s air force used an ssp to chase the lockheed u2 down the runway as it came into land someone in the passenger seat would be on the radio to the pilot to communicate what their unusually small landing gear was doing is back up to two one six inches both the iroc z and the ssp are badass american muscle but it's crazy to think that not a single one was offered with a manual transmission for every iroc z there's an iron duke out there and for that i'm gonna give it a respectable but conservative three points for chasing porsches down pch and chasing u2's up landing strips i'm gonna give the mustang four points here it looks like the mustang has cut off the camaro with a one point lead at the end of round three but before we get to the modern era let's set the wayback machine for one more stop welcome to the 90s a time of in-sync tuner culture and gekko t-shirts in 1993 we saw the 4th gen camaro it was still riding on a version of the f-body platform from the original 1967 camaro it came as all camaros should either hard top t-top or convertible with either a v6 or a v8 the lt1 v8 was making 275 horsepower while some ss models got the lt4 motor that pushed to 330 horsepower over at ford dealerships saw a new 1994 version of the fox platform called the fox 4. the new styling was quintessential 90s sports car but the power of the standard models just wasn't there the single overhead cam 4.6 liter v8 was only pushing out 215 horsepower the gt was over a hundred horsepower down on the ss the mustang did have a bit of a weight advantage but that went out the window in 1998 when chevy switched the camaro's v8 option to the c5 corvette's all-aluminum ls1 to compete with the camaro in this decade ford needed something more what they needed was a team to help build this special vehicle in 1993 ford started svt or the special vehicle team they were dedicated to making fast things faster and to making any ford model do a sweet ass burnout in the hands of this skunk works organization the mustang was transformed into the svt cobra they added over 30 horsepower to the 3rd gen fox body and by the time they got to 1996 the 4th gen got a dual overhead cam 4.6 liter v8 throwing down 305 horsepower as these rivals began to trade blows again each got stronger and stronger the 90s finally brought back the affordable but powerful muscle car but after the dust of y2k had settled chevy realized the camaro was in bad shape slowing sales in a shrinking market meant the f-body camaro that had been produced since 1967 was retired in 2002. for this decade it's clear that these two icons were evenly matched and i'm going to give both of them three points for inspiring my generation to get into muscle cars that means that the mustang is leading by one point but we've got one more era to talk about here we are in the present century a time of reboots being woke and youtubers explaining history in 2005 the world was introduced to the new mustang [Music] and the best part of it was that it looked like the old mustang ford's senior vice president of design jay mays called the look retro futurism this is a look that had been attempted in the us before but the pt cruiser and the plymouth prowler didn't capture the people's imagination the way the mustang did again ford was at the cutting edge of design and marketing and with chevy having mothballed the camaro it looked like the mustang was gonna have the market all to itself again it was another five years until we saw a new camaro and when you're that far behind is it even worth coming back if the camaro was going to make a return it needed to come out of the gate swinging but chevy had the element of surprise the mustang was still using the 4.6 liter modular v8 in the gt and even in 2010 it was only making 315 horsepower 15 more than it had originally launched with in 2005. chevy was poised to strike and strike they did they released a two-hour 24-minute commercial for the camaro a full two years before the 2010 camaro hit show floors i call the commercial the greatest marketing campaign of all time but most other people simply call it transformers [Music] seriously as smart as ford had been with some of the mustang's marketing moves in the past you can show any non-car person a yellow gen five camaro with black stripes and they'll say oh it's bumblebee oh it's bumblebee oh it's bumblebee ah it's bumblebee it looked aggressive it had 20-inch wheels it looked a bit like the original camaro it won an award from world car of the year for best design and the icing on camaro's chilled dish of revenge the manual ss came with an ls3 motor making 426 horsepower the camaro was the new sheriff in town but what's that blowing in on the dusty winds with the tumble weeds and horse manure is that the howl of a coyote [Music] in 2011 ford clapped back at chevy with a new range of aluminum block engines the mustang gt went from 4.6 liter to 5 liter and got its 5.0 badge back it was still a little low on power compared to the ss but it had a 500 pound weight advantage the mustang was faster on the drag strip but with its live rear axle it couldn't keep up with the camaro on track at this point all-round sails for both cars were basically matching but then the mustang got a new version in 2015 the coyote made its way to 435 horsepower but the real news was the long-awaited inclusion of independent rear suspension the mustang gt was now just as capable on track as the ss the 2015 mustang gt with its newly designed integral link suspension cornered its way around the nurburgring in eight minutes and seven seconds that's faster than the ss and faster than a dodge viper gts ford and chevy both put out supercharged versions of their prancing ponies in the form of the camaro zl11le and the mustang shelby gt500 the camaro was faster to 60 but the mustang was faster to 100 the mustang has bigger brakes and wheels but the camaro is a hundred pounds lighter their quarter mile times are almost identical as are their base prices the biggest factor that is still an unknown quantity is how these two perform on track against each other the camaro zl1 1le set a 7 minute 16 around nordschleife which is unheard of that is a time that smashes gtrs c6s and 488s it's one of the top 25 fastest times of a production car ever so what lap time did the gt500 do sadly we may never know in 2019 ford expressed that they had no interest in taking the shelby to germany for a lap they remarked that it's an american car and the benchmark that they're targeting was the virginia international raceway since then both cars have run at vir but in different track configurations it's almost as if they don't want us to know how the two stack up in all fairness though going back and forth about the top numbers of the ultimate trim levels only means so much and if you wanted me to i could run out of air talking about the ridiculous versions of these cars like the mustang rtr and hennessey's exorcist so with the mustang leading by one before round five we're going to have to buckle up and buckle down to tabulate these final scores for reintroducing the muscle car to the world for single-handedly starting the retro futurism trend we now see in ford chevy dodge and more and for advancing with the times i've got to give the mustang four points but for once again building a car specifically to beat the mustang for launching a marketing campaign that ensured a million kids would grow up to want a camaro and for building a car so good it's actually competing with supercars on track the camaro gets three points because this round is looking at 2000 to the present and the camaro left us for eight years you can't get full marks in a time period that you're only half here for which means that the mustang is our winner [Music] but this rivalry is far from over what will this decade bring 800 horsepower engines even more aggressive styling cheaper superchargers or will we get evs and crossovers all i know is i am here for it thanks for watching everyone be sure to check out donutmedia on twitter and instagram at donutmedia be sure to tell me in the comments that i'm a jdm weave who doesn't know a thing about american cars we got a really high pitch like oh my god okay [Music]

Channel: Donut

Views: 4,267,888

Keywords: Mustang, Camaro, mustang vs camaro, mustang versus camaro, chevy vs ford, camaro ss, coyote mustang, Chevrolet, Chevy, ford, ford mustang, chevrolet camaro, mustang ford, mustang car, ford mustang gt, shelby mustang, mustang gt500, mustang shelby gt500, chevy camaro, ford mustang vs chevy camaro, camaro versus mustang, mustang camaro, camaro history, mustang history, evolution of camaro, evolution of mustang, ford mustang vs chevrolet camaro, camaro vs mustang

Id: 9JL3XxbL4Sw

Length: 21min 22sec (1282 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 18 2020