Michigan test archive · Comparison 3

1993 Chevrolet Camaro (automatic) vs 1993 Ford Mustang (automatic)

The automatic Camaro and the automatic Mustang among the six special service-package cars Michigan tested for 1993, set side by side from the October 1992 bulletin. Both are in the braking table and both have their laps averaged over their fastest 12, so every measure the bulletin prints is available for both.

Meet the two cars

Why these two

Michigan tested two Camaros and two Mustangs among its 1993 special service-package cars, one automatic and one manual of each. This page puts the two automatics side by side because they are the one pair the bulletin gives every measure for: both are in the braking table, and both have their laps averaged over their fastest 12. The two manuals are on the 1993 page; neither is in the braking table, and both have their laps averaged over their fastest 9.

Head to head

The run to 100 mph

Each point is a four-run average from the bulletin’s Table 2. The Camaro reached every 10-mph step first; its lead grew from 0.35 seconds at 20 mph to 6.52 seconds at 100.

Under the skin

Run by run

The bulletin prints only each car’s four-run averages. It has no run sheets, so the individual runs, times of day, temperatures and winds, the distance to 100 mph and the quarter mile are not available.

Around the road course

Camaro: average of its fastest 12 laps 1:19.52, the lowest in the bulletin’s lap table, where four cars are averaged over their fastest 12 laps and seven over their fastest 9; the bulletin prints no individual laps.

Mustang: average of its fastest 12 laps 1:23.39; the bulletin prints no individual laps.

The bulletin’s method is “at least 12 timed laps by at least three drivers”, and its footnote marks both averages as the fastest 12; it does not say how many laps each car ran. The Camaro’s average was 3.87 seconds a lap quicker.

Braking in detail

Each bar is one measured stop as printed, drawn from zero. The stops began at 59.7 to 62.1 mph, not exactly 60 (see the table); the head-to-head table compares the bulletin’s deceleration rates.

The Camaro’s two stops were 9.9 feet apart (the second began at 62.1 mph, the first at 60.7) and the Mustang’s 3.6; the bulletin gives no reason. Of the ten entries in the braking table, the Camaro had the highest average and the Mustang the second-lowest. The bulletin prints no panic-stop results, swept areas or brake sizes.

0–100 mph across the test years

Each point is the 0–100 mph figure printed in that year’s source, as held in the archive’s test results: a full test book, or for 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998 and 2000 a bulletin (the table names each); the 1986, 1988 and 1989 bulletins call their results preliminary. The tests ran on different days in different weather, so the lines show what each source printed, not a controlled comparison. The entries are chosen by a rule, not by the books: every entry the test results name “Chevrolet Camaro (automatic)”, 1991 to 2002, and every one named “Ford Mustang (automatic)”, 1984 to 1993. The engines changed within each line (the 1984 Mustang’s was a 302 with central fuel injection; the test results give the Camaro’s engine as a 5.7-litre PFI, LT1 PFI or SFI in different years, and none at all in some); the manual cars, and the electric Mach-E entries of 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2026, are in the test results but not plotted. A line does not say the car was the same from one year to the next. The break in the Mustang line is 1985, which the archive holds only as a scoring sheet of four sedans, none of them a Mustang. Lower is quicker; the scale does not start at zero.