New Mustang V8 v BMW M2 DRAG RACE

What will win in a drag race between an American V8 and a European six-cylinder? Well, we're going to find out, because I'm going to drag race this US-imported new Mustang GT against the BMW M2 across the standing quarter mile. I'm Matt Watson, and you're watching Car Wow. The BMW M2 has a 3-litre twin-turbo straight-six that puts out 480 horsepower and 600 newton-metres of torque. It sends power to the rear wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox, and the car weighs 1,805 kilograms. The M2 costs from £63,000. The Ford Mustang has a 5-litre naturally aspirated V8, which normally in the UK puts out 453 horsepower and 540 newton-metres of torque. But this American-spec car actually has 486 horsepower and 567 newton-metres of torque, sending power to the rear wheels. The car weighs in at 1.7 tonnes. In the US, you would pay around $45,000 for this Mustang, which translates to £35,000. But in the UK, the Mustang actually costs £56,000. Right then, Sam. So we've basically got similar horsepower. We've both got automatic gearboxes. We weigh a similar amount. What do you think is going to happen? I mean, a little bit loose on the automatic gearboxes each, but we're skipping that. Everyone's saying, oh, they're a straight-line machine. Well, we're about to do straight line, so what's the argument going to be after that? Let's see. You sound like a man who's not that keen on American muscle cars. No, you're wrong. My dream car is, well, it's a fake car, but it's Eleanor from Gone in 60 Seconds. That's my dream. So no, I am a big fan. And the noise of this has already won, I think. Yeah, you see, Sam, that car's been lent to us by a chap called Dylan. He's in the US Air Force. He's had it imported over from the States so he can drive it around because he doesn't want to drive any of our British cars with the petrol particulate filters. Because the Mustangs that you get in the UK don't sound like the ones that you get in the US because they're just stifled by all our regulations. Sam, can you just rev up that engine? Let's have a listen to that. That is the sound of freedom. Now, I'm going to rev up my European. Oh, gosh. No, I'm not. I'm in drive. I'm going to rev up my European car. Are you ready? Again, a lot of noise in the cabin, but that's being played to the speakers. Okay, what I want you to do now, Sam, is rev your car while I'm revving mine. I'm sure you're going to drown out the sound of mine. Easy win for you. What might not be so easy is the drag race because I've got launch control and bizarrely with the Mustang, I know that the manual has launch control, but the automatic doesn't. I know, figure that out, right? I don't get it. Someone made a typo, didn't they, in the product description. Is this plane going to land on us? No, they used the white line as a fake landing idea. Okay, it's not landing on us. That's good. Shall we get on with this race then? Could we just check, is this a fly-off handbrake in this car? Just to make sure it's definitely off. My experience of that Mustang is it's not a fly-off handbrake, it's a normal handbrake. Okay, well, it's not working like a normal handbrake, it's working like a fly-off handbrake. My experience of that car is that it's a fly-off handbrake, it's not a normal handbrake. More professional journalism from Matthew. Three, two, one. What happened? Nothing. You won. But we've got the same power. So when you leave traction in halfway house, it just kind of holds and short shifts and does all kinds of funny things. If you do it in manual and leave it in halfway house with traction halfway on, it does a weird, it like holds its revs. It's just got a very light, loose rear. You were so slow that I think I jumped. I'm going to try it in D and see if that can do it anything better. If you can't do any better, I want a discount on your invoice. You need to pay me first before you can be asking for discounts, Matthew. Have we got any other slower cars? This is just a whitewash. What about that other BMW? That one there that's like a four by four. What's that? Sam's personal car. What is your personal car, Sam? Yes, it is, Matthew. Is it an X3 M40i? You are literally the worst journalist I've ever met in my life. How could that possibly? You couldn't have got that more wrong. Oh, it's an X5, isn't it? Yes. At least I didn't say it was a Mercedes. If you do poorly again, I want to beat you with your own car. Right, you want to get in my car. But let's do one more of these first. Your initial launch and timing was all fine, Sam. They have pretty much the same horsepower. Yeah, this is, it's even like I've got the traction that, like I said, halfway on, almost fully on, and it's just floating. So we'll just do a rolling race with these, just for a laugh. You're going to get **** though, aren't you? I don't know. Once this was going, it was quite fast. It's just the initial bit. Now we're going to race Sam's own personal car against the Mustang a little later in this video. First though, we're going to do a roll into a quarter mile race. So we're going to roll in about 10 miles an hour. Will will start us and then we will race to the quarter mile. See if Mustang can do better when it's not struggling too much to put its power down. Or maybe it will struggle just as much. We'll find out. Three, two, one. Oh, this turbo lag. Oh, turbo lag was real there. Flawed it, nothing happened. He took off and here we go. So to be fair on this, maybe it's a bit of driver error. But the gearbox, when you have it in manual, it's weird. Like you pull and nothing happens and then it holds and then it changes and it's a bit strange. By strange, do you mean ****? No. I love these cars. Definitely not ****. I don't know. It doesn't shift up itself, you know, like in anything else if you do it, but it's annoying. Let me on the way back, let me try and figure it out. And I want one more go at that. That's it. That's what you want. Look at that. All right. I figured it out. I got it. I got it. OK. Right. Don't worry, Americans, right? Don't worry. Sam's got it. And he could be in with a shout this time because he took off really well. It's just his gear changes were so lame. Three, two, one. Let's move sideways a bit. That's better. He's got the hang of it now. Yeah, that's much better, isn't it? It's close. Yeah, but it's like playing a video game. You have to get it right every time. Do you know what? I take it all back, actually. Well, you're using it properly and you know what to do with it. Sounds good. Goes really well. What was going wrong before? Well, it red lines at seven and a half, right? Yeah. But you have to change just after seven because it jumps when you change gear for the cut. OK, but if it hits the limiter, it stays there for ages. OK, but you can't if you shift before seven, you'll be slow. Yes. So it's like a game. So you did it wrong before. Definitely. OK. Did you ever play that golf game on PC where you click the mouse twice and it goes up and around and you click it again to make to make you hit the ball straight? No. OK. That's what that's like. Good. There's a line. It's like a thing I don't know. Yeah. I wasn't watching the road at all. I was watching the little line and I was trying to hit the paddle on the line. OK, let's try second gear roll on 30 miles an hour. OK, it's going to be close. This is going to be close. I take it all back. I'm liking that now. Oh, that's what the Americans do with European cars is that their engines like they're trying to do small with loads of power and they're super complex and especially when they use vehicles that go wrong all the time. That five litre, it's just going to work and work and work and work and work. And if something does go wrong, it's not going to be as complex or as problematic to fix as something like this. If you're changing your car, then you've got to check out Carwow because there's nothing quite like knowing that you're getting a great price, both when selling your old car and finding a new one. Carwow makes all the stuff that's hard work about car changing, like the haggling, the no shows and the nasty surprises, a thing of the past, life changing. Now, if you want to go to Carwow right now, I'll put a link in the description of this video and the pinned comment. Alternatively, you can click on the pop out banner appearing in the top right hand corner of the screen now or scan the QR code on screen using your mobile phone to go directly there. Car change, Carwow. Let's do it then. Roll on. Let's do a half mile. Get on me, mate. Three, two, one, go. Come on. Oh, hello. So that was really close. It was. Did you miss shift? Because you just went, look. No. So I was in like, I don't know, gear 13 or 14. Yeah. And it just hit a brick wall for a while. Yeah. It stopped at five and then came back again. Either way, it lost quite comprehensively. Let's see what happens with third gear roll on at 50. Okay. If you have the same problem. Three, two, one, go. I've got it wrong. This is closer. Come on. We did that thing again. It says speed limit on the dash, but there's nothing written down for the speed limit. But if that's, and now I remember at 121, it hesitates. Yeah. You just see it. Yeah. At 121, it goes, are you sure? Okay. And then keeps going. It's close. I mean, until that dodginess happens, it's close, isn't it? Sounds good though, doesn't it? Sounds so good. I still prefer this though. I'd have this, wouldn't you have this over that? Yeah, I would. Yeah. The gear shift is annoying. It takes too much concentration. Yeah. I think with a manual, that would be awesome. Yeah. I'd like that with a manual. Yeah. This with a manual I'd have. Yeah. Definitely. Right. Let's do one more thing. Now we're going to have a brake test from 100 miles an hour. When we hit the line for emergency stop. If you'd rather watch another drag race with some muscle cars, click on the pop out banner or scan the QR code on screen now using your mobile phone. If you're watching a smart TV, of course, otherwise you're going to find it hard to do that. If not, stay here for the brake test. Going to put this down out of the way. Here we go. Oh, this is skating. Come on. Yes. Oh, now I pulled the muscle in my back doing that. I felt the front wheels like hit some moss and it just, I felt it just slide and that was it. I won. Yeah. I borrowed your book of excuses there, didn't I? What page is the moss excuse on? That's 56. Any kind of shrubbery. Slippiness is 56 onwards. It's covered in chapters six shrubbery and other foliage. Matt, I have to cut off. You cut you off there. One second. Sorry. My watch thinks I've been in a crash. That's how well the Mustang brakes. It makes your smartwatch think you've had a nasty accident. I just had to cancel 999. Now I promised you I'd race Sam's car. Here it is. BMW X5 M50D. So Sam, can you just quickly give me the stats of your car? That's a 2017 X5 M50D. I believe it's like 380 something horsepower and then I think 800 and something Newton meters of Newton's torque. So yeah, that's all I know. I think it's quite quick. Okay. We're going to find out if it's quicker than the Mustang, but first I want to just have a little bit of a rummage about and see what we've got in here. We've got some coins at the ready. Sam has really bad, bad breath. So, you know, he needs to carry those at all times. A fuel. That's why he's got bad breath. You got a cough, mate. Got a bit of a chesty cough. Oh, I love these. What are you doing? Genuinely don't know what you're chewing on. I do keep dog toys in there, don't I? Air freshener to hide his bad breath again. Got some Viagra. I think he puts that up his bottom. You've opened my lollipop, haven't you? I can see now. Absolute crap. I got that for being good in my last haircut. And you got a Batman air freshener. I think some of these receipts, he's going to actually charge them to CarWire. So I'll just get rid of those. The kid makes me do that. I'm going to throw those away. Joke's on him, Jack, because I started that lollipop earlier on. Anyway, I'm going to throw these away and we'll save some cash. Okay. Let's do a sound check. I'm just going to rev up your diesel. It doesn't sound great, does it? Shall we get on with the drag race then? Your car's slow. No, it's not. Got off the line well though, didn't it? It did. This is lovely. I earned that. I sat quietly in my seat. Anyway, yeah, quick off the line, but then it runs out of puff at the top end. A bit like yourself. Yeah, I agree. So then what exactly happened? Well, the BMW won. It completed the standing quarter mile in 11.9 seconds. The Ford took 13.6 seconds. However, when the X5 was substituted in, the Mustang won. This time it completed the standing quarter mile in 13.5 seconds. The BMW took 14.3 seconds. Anyway, listen, I hope you all enjoyed the video. If you did, give it a like. If you want to watch some other videos, click on the windows. If you want to compare all these cars' quarter mile times to everything else we've ever drag raced, just click on the CarWire logo to check out the CarWire Drag Race leaderboard. And a huge thanks to the people who lent us their cars to drag race today, but not Sam. No thanks to you, mate. Thanks for the lorry though.