2018 Chevrolet Camaro SS vs. 2018 Ford Mustang GT | Comparison Test | Edmunds

A tenth of a second separates the 2018 Chevrolet Camaro SS’s 0-60 time from the 2018 Ford Mustang GT’s — 4.3 seconds to 4.4 — which meant Edmunds editors Carlos Lago and Mark Takahashi had to look well past the stopwatch to settle this one. Between a $37,000 Camaro with a 455-horsepower V8 and a Mustang that climbs toward $49,000 once optioned up, the real story is what each car costs to actually get what you want. Watch to see which one they picked, and why.

Two pony cars, two V8s, and one number that split viewers straight down the middle: a tenth of a second. That’s the entire gap between how quickly a 2018 Mustang GT and a 2018 Camaro SS get to 60 miles an hour, and somehow that razor-thin difference became the least controversial part of this comparison. Editors Carlos Lago and Mark Takahashi spent a day putting both factory rivals through their paces — on a track, in daily traffic, and everywhere the two nameplates have been arguing with each other since 1966. One car walked away with the win. The reasons had almost nothing to do with the stopwatch.

The 0-60 Gap That’s Basically a Rounding Error

On paper, the numbers favor Chevrolet by the thinnest of margins: the Camaro SS’s 6.2-liter V8, paired with its six-speed manual, got it to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds during Edmunds’ testing, while the Mustang GT’s 5.0-liter V8 with the 10-speed automatic needed 4.4 seconds to do the same. A tenth of a second is close enough to fall within normal run-to-run variance for either car, which is exactly why the review spends far more time on how each car feels on a track and in daily traffic than on the stopwatch numbers themselves. Straight-line speed, in other words, was never going to be the deciding factor between two cars this evenly matched.

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What 455 Horsepower and 455 Pound-Feet Actually Buys

The Camaro SS starts at $37,000 and builds on the 1LT trim’s equipment list with a 6.2-liter V8 rated at 455 horsepower and 455 pound-feet of torque, paired with a six-speed manual transmission as the standard gearbox. That symmetry between the horsepower and torque figures is a genuine LT1 engine trait, not a coincidence of rounding, and it’s part of why the Camaro’s V8 has developed a reputation among owners for pulling hard across a wide rev range rather than needing to be wound out to feel strong.

The Mustang’s Price Climbs Fast Once You Start Checking Boxes

Ford’s 2018 Mustang GT starts around $36,000 with some exterior body enhancements and a limited-slip differential included from the factory. Edmunds’ actual test car was a GT Premium, and by the time it left with the 10-speed automatic transmission ($1,695) and the active performance exhaust ($895) added, the as-tested price had climbed to almost $49,000 — a full $12,000 above the sticker most shoppers would see in an ad. That gap matters for anyone cross-shopping these two on price alone: a base Mustang GT undercuts a loaded Camaro SS, but a similarly optioned Mustang can end up costing considerably more.

Two Journalists, Two Very Different Home-Turf Opinions

Pairing Carlos Lago and Mark Takahashi for this test wasn’t incidental — putting two editors with potentially different preferences behind the wheel of the same two cars is exactly how a comparison test avoids becoming one person’s personal opinion dressed up as objective testing. Commenters singled this out specifically, with at least one viewer noting how rare it is to see a manufacturer-adjacent outlet publish a review willing to genuinely criticize either car rather than defaulting to marketing-friendly praise. That reputation for constructive criticism is part of why the video kept generating comments — including from at least one buyer who says the review helped push a Camaro purchase over a Mustang.

A Rivalry That’s Older Than Both These Cars’ Grandparents

The Mustang and Camaro have been squaring off in exactly this format since 1966, when Chevrolet rushed the original Camaro to market specifically to answer Ford’s runaway Mustang success. More than five decades later, this 2018 matchup is still fundamentally the same argument — rear-wheel-drive, V8-powered, two-door American coupes built for enthusiasts who want a manual transmission and a naturally engaging chassis over outright technology. What’s changed is the sophistication underneath: both the LT1 V8 in the Camaro and the Coyote V8 in the Mustang trace their DNA to decades of racing and engineering refinement that the original 1966 versions of these cars never had access to.

The Drag Race Request That Never Got Answered

One of the most repeated requests in the comment section is for exactly the kind of content this review doesn’t include: a straight-up quarter-mile drag race between the two cars, run back to back on the same strip. It’s an understandable ask given how close the 0-60 numbers land, but a comparison test built around track handling and daily-driving impressions serves a different purpose than a drag-strip shootout — and the two formats tend to attract different audiences within the same rivalry. The absence of a drag race hasn’t stopped viewers from debating, hypothetically, which V8 would actually win one.

Why Buyers Still Split Almost Evenly Between These Two

Comments on the video reflect exactly the kind of split decision the review itself arrived at — owners of both cars showing up to defend their choice, with Mustang GT Premium performance-package owners and Camaro SS buyers alike calling the review comprehensive and fair rather than tilted toward either brand. That kind of near-even split has defined Mustang-versus-Camaro debates for decades, and this generation is no exception: whichever way Edmunds’ editors ultimately leaned, plenty of real-world buyers in the comments made the opposite call and are just as happy with it.

Where These Two Cars Sat in Their Model Cycles

2018 landed at an interesting point in each car’s product cycle. That was the model year Ford gave the sixth-generation Mustang its mid-cycle refresh, introducing the new 10-speed automatic transmission featured on this test car along with revised styling and a available digital gauge cluster, while the Camaro’s sixth generation was still running its original 2016-era styling ahead of its own facelift the following year. That timing means this particular comparison caught the Mustang at a genuine technological high point relative to the Camaro, which makes the closeness of the final result even more notable than the raw numbers suggest. Whether that refresh advantage was enough to swing the final verdict, or whether the Camaro’s lower entry price and standard manual gearbox carried more weight with the editors, is exactly the kind of detail that keeps this rivalry from ever fully settling in either direction. Either way, the closeness of this particular matchup is a big part of why comparison tests between these two nameplates keep drawing an audience decade after decade — there’s rarely a runaway winner, just two very good answers to the same question.

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