2024 Mustang Dark Horse vs Lotus Emira, M2, Supra, Camaro, Challenger — Cammisa Ultimate Drag Race

Hagerty Video Transcript

[Laughter] It’s over the world is ending the muscle car is dying doesn’t matter there’s a new Mustang and an entire crop manual transmission rear wheeel drive coups for America’s only remaining muscle car to beat up on so wipe away those tears there’s nothing to be upset about we’re going to have a Race this video is brought to you by the Hagerty Drivers Club which includes a subscription to our award-winning magazine 24/7 flatbed roadside assistance and F more join or get more info at the link below Darkhorse is a track performance package for the Mustang think Boss 302

Or Mach 1 it has stupid sticky tires big brakes a tmic six-speed manual and 20 extra horsepower from the coyote 5 L it now makes 100 horsepower per liter nearing the production car record for the highest specific output of any naturally aspirated crossplane crank V8

Ever and it does that in part by having twice as many throttles as the other American cars have camps then also four times as many cam Shafts these V8s have a single cam shaft each plus push rods an engine design that predates life on Earth but they make up for it with displacement 6. 2 and 6.4 L of flatulent testosterone they’re a little bit down on horsepower but a lot up on torque and gears that

Has an eight speed that has a 10 Speed D you know who just won America that’s who and the Camaro cuz its quickest and sounds the best but these guys are all on top of each other finishing within just 3 and a half car lengths while spraying the mountains in the distance with the unmistakable sound of filthy V8s that race would have been a lot closer not to mention a lot more fair if the Mustang had had its optional 10-speed automatic but we asked Ford for Emanual Dark Horse for a reason those other American cars are going out of production now and the European stick shift cars

Aren’t this episode of ultimate drag race replay brought to you by Valentine 1 radar detectors find the radar before it finds you not that you need to worry about that because you don’t speed right And now back to the um speeding all four of these cars have two doors rear wheeel drive and a boatload of horsepower one of them is 100% German another says Toyota on it but is actually a BMW and the only one with a Toyota engine in it says Lotus on the outside

Confused well allow us to elaborate the Supra is as you surely know by now a rebodied BMW Z4 had it actually been a Toyota it would have debuted with a manual from the get-go so let’s all thank Toyota for pushing BMW to put a stick in it and for making BMW engineer

A shift linkage that feels better than any manual BMW of the last 20 years including the manual in the M2 but the m2’s s58 engine uses two turbos to make 4 153 horsepower whereas the sua single turbo b58 makes just 382 but the M2 weighs a scarcely believable 400 lb more than the

Super will the extra turbo help it overcome that disadvantage you may be wondering why the hell we have a Lotus Amira here me too it just showed up but it’s beautiful oh and it serves as a lightweight Benchmark for performance it makes only 400 horsepower but it weighs nearly half

A ton less than the Mustang giving it the best power to weight ratio of any car here Dark Horse included plus it’s one rung up in price and about five rungs up in Prestige so as they might say in a place from which I’m not from let’s do this L what the hell is wrong with BMW these days look at this thing it’s not supposed to be up here the car with the second worst power to weight ratio left everything else for dead I guess BMW can’t stop itself from making outrageously powerful engines except when there’s a Toyota badge on

It the M2 not only beat a whole bunch but it posted the same numbers as the Camaro SS from the last race that wouldn’t be surprising given they have within 2 horsepower and we within 45 lb but the M2 is a manual it should have been way slower than the 10-speed

Automatic Camaro motor is definitely BMW’s middle name here’s the thing the M2 and Supra have similarish power to weight and similarish acceleration until they shift into third gear and then that thing takes off like it’s got some sort of over boost or something which it probably does truth is once that’s in

Third gear nobody stands a Chance the only naturally aspirated car of the bunch is no slouch doesn’t hurt that the dark hor makes 500 horsepower and it gets off the line like a lunatic pulling even on the M2 thanks to rear tires that are made of crazy glue we set launch control to 4100 RPM

And the Mustang was a piece of cake to launch consistently hitting 60 in 4.2 seconds I actually expected this car to be a tenth or two quicker to 60 given the violent launch and the computer controlled no lift shift but that trimic just will not be rushed from first to

Second in year this thing pulls like a monster just not hard enough to keep up with that M2 which feels like it’s got another 100 horsepower under its Hood which it probably does turbos are Cheating the car that math said should win didn’t and that doesn’t mean the Amira is slow it’s not in fact it would have beaten the Dark Horse if it weren’t for the lotus’s transmission with an incredibly abusive clutch dump the Lotus explodes off the line like a mid-engine

Rocket pulling an easy car length or two on everything else and then it comes time to shift the Amira’s I design speed manual was originally designed for low revving diesels and Lotus replaced a bunch of its inerts but not second gear and the second gear Synchro is not

Having any part of this 6800 RPM party the shift from first to second can take an entire second if the trany lets you in at all I know that saying this car is not about straight line speed sounds like an excuse but when you’re talking about a Lotus it’s not that is an

Incredible driver’s car but it’s an incredible British driver’s car and the Brits don’t drag race there is literally one drag racing facility in the entire country I don’t even think Matt Watson’s been There math says the Supra should be the slowest car here and it was but not by much and that’s because it puts down all of that outrageous gear ability power the shifter lets you shift like a lunatic and the gear ratios are perfectly spaced for acceleration the subra gets off the line

Easily and consistently with enough power to spin the rears but not so much that it’s a nightmare to manage if you ignore the little grind into second gear it’ll let you shift as fast as you can can maximizing acceleration But ultimately it just doesn’t have the power to keep up with the

Others and there you have it six very different cars that all get through the quarter in the tws seems these days it’s not just the muscle cars that are fast in a straight line very annoyingly the muscle car is going away but don’t worry the fast gas

Powered car isn’t what are you nuts the Amir is the last gas powered Lotus don’t they don’t need to know that right now no