Ford Mustang 2016 Shelby GT350R vs. Chevrolet Camaro 2015 Z/28

On paper the 2016 Shelby GT350R had 21 more horsepower than the 2015 Camaro Z/28, which should have settled the argument before either car turned a wheel. The dyno told a different story: down low, the Chevrolet made almost a hundred more pound-feet of torque. Motor Trend took both to Chuckwalla Valley Raceway with Randy Pobst driving to find out which philosophy actually worked. Read on to find out which one walked away with the title.

On paper, the 2016 Shelby GT350R’s 526 horsepower should have made the fight with Chevrolet’s 505-horsepower Z/28 a formality. But dig into the dyno numbers and something strange shows up: at low RPM, the supposedly weaker Camaro was actually putting down substantially more torque than the flat-plane-crank Mustang. That contradiction is exactly why Motor Trend put both cars on a real track instead of trusting the spec sheet, and the result was not as simple as more horsepower wins. Two engineering teams had spent years attacking the same problem from opposite directions, and only one of those answers survived contact with a stopwatch.

The Torque Paradox

The GT350R’s flat-plane-crank 5.2-liter V8 made its peak 526 horsepower high in the rev range, but down around 1,500 rpm it was producing just 239 lb-ft of torque, well short of the Z/28’s 341 lb-ft at the same engine speed, thanks to the Camaro’s naturally aspirated 7.0-liter LS7 V8. That meant the Mustang needed to be worked harder and kept higher in its rev range to make the most of its power advantage, while the Z/28 could lean on low-end grunt right off a corner. On a tight circuit with slow-speed exits, that difference is not academic. It is the difference between a car that rewards a disciplined driver and one that flatters an average one.

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165 Pounds That Changed Everything

Where the GT350R pulled ahead was everywhere else: it weighed roughly 165 pounds less than the Z/28, ran carbon fiber wheels, and used adaptive magnetic dampers to control body motion through corners. Weight removed from the wheels themselves is worth several times its value in the chassis, because it reduces both unsprung mass and rotating inertia at the same time. The R-model also deleted the rear seat, and buyers could go further and delete air conditioning and the audio system entirely. Ford was not chasing a comfortable fast Mustang here. It was chasing a lap time and treating everything else as ballast.

Voodoo: America’s First Flat-Plane V8

The 5.2-liter engine Ford called Voodoo was the first flat-plane-crank V8 ever fitted to a mass-production American car, a layout borrowed from Ferrari rather than Detroit. A flat-plane crank spaces the connecting rod journals 180 degrees apart instead of the 90 degrees used in a traditional cross-plane V8, which lets the engine breathe more evenly and spin far higher, but at the cost of secondary vibration and the loss of that familiar burbling American V8 rumble. The GT350R sounded like nothing else Ford had ever sold, revved past 8,000 rpm, and made its power in a place most muscle car buyers had never had to visit.

The Last Great LS7

The Z/28 attacked the same problem from the exact opposite end. Its LS7 was a 7.0-liter naturally aspirated pushrod V8 originally developed for the C6 Corvette Z06, with titanium connecting rods, titanium intake valves, and a dry-sump oiling system so it would not starve under sustained cornering load. It made 505 horsepower and 481 lb-ft, and unlike the Voodoo it delivered a huge slug of that torque almost immediately. Chevrolet then stripped the car with the same ruthlessness Ford would later apply, deleting sound deadening, thinning the rear glass, and making air conditioning a no-cost delete rather than standard equipment.

Two Track Cars, One Non-Negotiable Rule

Both cars shared one rule that says more about their intent than any horsepower figure: neither was offered with an automatic transmission. The Z/28 came only with a Tremec six-speed manual, and the GT350R only with a Tremec six-speed of its own. In an era when dual-clutch gearboxes were already shifting faster than any human could, two of Detroit’s most serious track cars were sold exclusively with three pedals. That was a deliberate statement about who these cars were built for, and it is a large part of why both have held their value the way they have.

Rubber, Brakes, and Where the Money Went

The equipment that never shows up in a horsepower argument is where most of the money went. The Z/28 ran carbon-ceramic Brembo brakes and Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tires, a combination that let Chevrolet claim it could pull more than 1.5 g in cornering. The GT350R answered with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 rubber developed specifically for the car and a front splitter and rear wing tuned as a package. Both were sold at prices that shocked people who still thought of pony cars as budget performance: the Z/28 listed around $75,000, and the GT350R undercut it by well over ten thousand dollars while offering more track hardware for the money.

What Chuckwalla Actually Proved

At Chuckwalla Valley Raceway, driver Randy Pobst found the lighter, more track-focused Mustang faster and more composed overall, and Motor Trend’s Head 2 Head shootout ultimately crowned the GT350R the more track-capable car, dethroning the Z/28 from the title it had held. The verdict was less about the 21-horsepower gap on the spec sheet and more about mass, damping, and how quickly each car settled after a direction change. The Z/28 was the more dramatic thing to drive. The GT350R was simply the more effective one, which is a distinction that only shows up when someone is actually timing you.

Which One Aged Better

Ten years on, both cars have graduated from press-fleet curiosities into genuine collector territory, and both are now valued for the same reason they were built: they represent the last moments before electrification and forced induction rewrote the rules. The Z/28 was produced in deliberately small numbers and remains one of the rarest fifth-generation Camaros. The GT350R carried an engine Ford has already retired and is unlikely to build again. Whichever side of the argument you land on, the honest answer is that nobody makes cars quite like either of these anymore. Emissions pressure, fuel economy targets and the industry-wide shift toward turbocharging and hybrid assistance mean a naturally aspirated 7.0-liter pushrod V8 and a screaming 8,000-rpm flat-plane V8 are both effectively extinct as new-car propositions. Anyone shopping for one today is buying a specific moment rather than a specification, which is why condition, mileage and originality now matter more on these than the lap-time argument that defined them a decade ago. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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