Quote:
Originally Posted by BlaqWhole
Ford basically just tries to keep up with the Camaro.
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Not really.
The Camaro was irrelevant when Ford was developing the 2012/2013 Boss 302. Ford was aiming and competing with the M3. Ford's benchmark in development of the S550 was Porsche, not the Camaro, which they directly said. Likewise when they were working on the GT350 the Z/28 was only one of the cars they were using as performance goals, the other being a Z51 C7 and a 911 variant. Hell the entire S550 project was started before the Camaro was even on showroom floors for more than a few months (2009).
The goal of the S550 was to maintain, roughly, the performance of the late S197 Mustang GT's while improving comfort, fit, finish and handling..which they accomplished. The benchmark for the 2015 GTPP was the Boss 302, which they matched in everything except 1/4 mile performance.
Meanwhile Chevy had multiple S550's that they were using to test and benchmark the 6th Gen Camaro with in late 2014 and early 2015.
The company that has consistently been playing catch up and trying to overcome stigma has been GM and the Camaro, not the Mustang. The death of the Camaro in 2002 is still really raw and fresh for a lot of people and seems to be an ever present, even if unfounded, fear for the Camaro community.