1985 Mustang GT vs. Camaro Iroc-Z vs. Trans Am | Retro Review

motorWeek is made possible by a tire rack, you know, this time of year, a young man's fantasy turns to cars of course, so we thought we'd watch three teenagers over the hill engaged in their favorite hobby arguing about their cars. What do you have, yeah, fried hamburgers and a coke and my Mustang GT like that Trans Am for lunch? Oh yeah, isn't that Mustang and fo Rd hasn't found Rude ed? Hey, that's the first one on race day, what nonsense this new I Rock. Camaro will ruin them both. Let me show you what's under the hood of this Pontiac.

This is your base high-performance engine, 305 cubic inch, 190 horsepower, big screaming four-cylinder, it's done with a 5-speed manual, five gears with no wait. You can also delight in 16 inch wheels with two R-rated 45 50 v Goodyear Gator backs huge sway bars and four-wheel disc brakes to stop this 3,300 60 pound Indian 10 hey, my Mustang has 225 60 Gator backs mounted on 15 inch wheels, sway bars the size of sewer pipes, not to mention disc brakes on the front, so don't mention them of course, under the hood, hot rodder heaven, manual

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mission 5-speed gets its power from the 302 cubic inch, 210 horsepower FOMO COE engine. with all the goodies tube heads high lift roller cam and a Holley four barrel big enough to inhale Cleveland all in a white package of 30 180 pound carburetors just carburetors hey it's the 80's haven't you ever heard of of fuel injection?

It's five liters. tuned port-injected small-block Chevy that makes 215 horsepower and is the slickest 4-speed automatic

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mission Surf City has ever seen and if you want to go fast in the corners, I'd rather eat walkers in the Chevy. like I said, if you want to go fast in the corners, my Rock eye is also sporty: 4550 VR 16 Gator backrests and four-wheel disc brakes Plus anti-roll bars largely at a lower center of gravity than the standard z28, In short, a 3500 80 In the 2,000-pound slot car there's only one place to solve this on the race track, so it's the 190-horsepower, five-speed Firebird Trans Am, the five-speed Mustang GT, and 210 horsepower and the 215 horsepower four-speed automatic Camaro

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-z arriving at the first stop of our muscle car showdown in Monrovia Maryland 7580 pulls away where the first two cars to face off we are the best of General Motors, the I Roxy and the Trans Am now out of the line, the few Lehigh rocks with better bottom end torque and traction take the Trans Am but mid-track, the more freely accelerating Trans Am climbs and goes to the top.

Roxy takes the light with a quarter-mile time of fourteen point seven seconds at 89 miles per hour, a tenth of a second faster than Chevy's best and confident old man. Trans Am must now take on Dearborne's most damned descents through the lights and watch out as the lightweight Mustang GT with excellent rear-wheel drive Eagle Gator beats the Tin Indian at his own game, the Mustang stampedes out the door and He walks away halfway across the track at the finish line. It's a pony car forged by four car lengths to the tune of fourteen point three seconds at 92 miles per hour, so when the tire smoke cleared, the two fastest cars had carburetors simply carburetors;

First up on race day, the Mustang was followed by the Trans Am, which in Turn was perfectly outclassed by the Camaro Iroc-Z, but since all bad things get better, our three bad machines take off into the twisty turns and highs. banks of Pennsylvania's Pocono International race cable, okay, this is a dead man's curve, but we did it. I set up a special two-mile course using both the high bank and the tri-oval's long straights and a very tight inside loop. Well, we thought we'd warm up first with high-speed straight runs between the high banks here again. The Mustang sped away at a blistering 127 miles per hour.

The next fastest was the Chevy I, slowed only by its automatic transmission and the driver's fear at a speed of 123 miles per hour. The less powerful Trans Am almost matched the

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-z thanks to a slippery body. and the top speed of the manual transmission was 122. The absolute top speed for all of these cars is over 130. There it was in the driving course first, the Mustang looking like the late Steve McQueen's Bullitt machine on a busy day. Its powerful motor is lightweight. The dated chassis produced a lot of Ronal-induced oversteer, but aided by the rabbit gas struts, gunshots and warbling speed.

The Mustang's springs snap around the high banks and straightaways and slam it into the tight corners to produce a very fast average lap speed of 70 3.5 miles. per hour it can be all over the track, but it is fast. Next up is our Indian uprising from Pontiac, so watch out for the Mustang. The Gator's huge backrests and more sophisticated chassis make this one run gray even without the latest in gas shocks. This year's largest stabilizer bars. It meant the handling was stable and neutral in tight corners with no unnecessary drama, this Trans Am goes where it points and as it passes the stopwatches it corners the Mustang's time two tenths of a second faster with an average speed of 70 3.7, but at this point Chevrolet had its own surprise with more weight and an automatic transmission.

The iroc-z should have been at a disadvantage here, but it politely dusted off both the Mustang and the Trans Am with its Mustang-like lower power curb and a more tuned chassis than the Trans Am, the IROC was fast and mean, no problems, no complications and with a super stiff front end and Bilstein gas shocks in the rear, the Iroc-Z corners hard, brakes quickly and really drags the mail and while the Chevy contingent cheered the Iroc-Z. It ran nine-tenths of a second faster than the Trans Am and more than a second faster than the Mustang with an average lap speed of 70 4.4 miles per hour, so what does this prove?

That cars are like beer, it's all a matter of taste. without a doubt the Mustang is the fastest in acceleration and top plus it has the lowest base price at ten thousand two hundred and twenty four dollars but it can be a real challenge in the curves on the other hand the iroc-z is a very similar to its older Chevy brother, the Corvette, fast and sophisticated, but also more expensive. Base price: twelve thousand six hundred thirty-five dollars. Between the two, a surprising commitment emerges. Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. Fast, almost like the Mustang, but sophisticated in handling.

Hi Roxy, it also has a price. among the others in eleven thousand nine hundred and eighty-three, so I guess we're still not sure who builds the ultimate factory muscle car. It's a discussion that's been going on for over 20 years and, like the notion of eternal youth, we hope it's a debate that never ends.