Will the sheer ingenuity and design of this modified Ford Mustang be enough to take out this factory GT500?
The question of whether it is better to buy or to build your car for straight-line speed has beset the automotive community for decades because of the sheer popularity surrounding modification. Even starting with do you buy your own Ford Mustang floor liners or Ford Mustang floor mats can be tricky when you own a beast of a car already. Vehicles such as the Ford Mustang and other American muscle cars are typically at the front line of this intense debate due to the full-throttle focus on power and performance both on and off the track. If you are part of the buying crowd, you may say something like a hellcat or GT500. On the opposite side of the spectrum, you may have the backs of performance tuners such as Hennesy or Clyve Sutton, but either way, the best way to measure the performance of these cars is usually a drag race.
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This particular race features two modern Ford Mustangs who aim to determine a true winner for this fiery discussion. Vehicle number one is an incredible GT500 which sports a substantial 5.2-liter V8 engine making 760 horsepower and 625 ft/lbs of torque. This may seem like a couple of huge numbers, but today's opponent is packing quite a large sunrise under the hood. Having been built by Clyve Sutton and his team of automotive enthusiasts, this CS850 Mustang is packing a gigantic supercharger that sits on top of a 5.0-liter V8. That powerhouse is pushing out 859 horsepower and 900 ft/lbs of torque through the six-speed manual transmission, which is the perfect drive train for this sort of vehicle.
Lining up to the starting line after some wicked tire-burning action, these cars are prepped and ready to send it down the track at full throttle. It would appear that both vehicles have some trouble hooking as the tires spin just a bit upon launch, but they quickly gain speed, with the GT500 taking the first place position in race number one. The second race was even more in the GT500's favor as it was a roll race and took away the lack of traction. While these cars are both incredibly fast, the manual transmission in the Sutton vehicle was the straw that broke the camel's back, so perhaps the question here isn't "built not bought" but rather "manual or automatic?"
