moddedblog

Being that I missed the original muscle car battle of the late sixties to the early seventies, I am paying very close attention to the new (And possibly last, thanks to upcoming emissions standards) battle royale between Detroit’s finest V8 cars. I was so excited to read Motor Trend’s  comparison back in June between the stock versions of the Camaro SS, Mustang GT, and Challenger R/T. These cars embody so much of what I love in a car: style, simplicity, raw power, and that oh-so-sexy V8 growl. I must have read that article ten times.

Then I got the mail the other day and nearly fell over when I saw the December cover. When words like “Hennessey”, “Shelby” and “SpeedFactory” grace the cover of a magazine, you know you’re in for a good read. In so many words, the Hennessey Camaro made a little less horsepower than the Shelby pony but whipped it on the track due mostly to a better handling package and stickier tires. The best news for everybody is that the claimed “650″ horsepower by Hennessey is in fact a gross understatement. On the dyno, the HPE650 made 612 at the wheels! Using a 15% drivetrain loss, this puts the Camaro at over 700 to the crank, well above the claimed amount. Sweet. Now Hennessey has their LS9-swapped HPE700 which has 645 rwhp…wait…only 33 more? I don’t know the package pricing, but I imagine that the HPE700 is much more expensive. I’d be anxious to see it go against an even more tuned GT500 and a 7.2L Challenger. We shall see.