Musclecar War in Miniature: 2011 Camaro V6 Tops Mustang V6 By Seven Horsepower

You have got to love musclecars. Beyond their ridiculously lovable propensity for excess, they are also some of the best-loved cars on the planet. And you better believe that the people that build them know it.

So, if you’re Chevy, what do you do for your still-giddy Camaro fanbase after Ford announces a more-powerful V6 model that beats your V6 model? Well, you tell them that you’re willing to go shot-for-shot with the Blue Oval, and that you’re going to fire back with a 312-horsepower V6 model for the 2011 model year. Making the announcement that next year’s entry level Camaro will best Ford’s rental ‘Stang by 7 horsepower to a select group of online Camaro enthusiast communities, GM quickly followed that surreptitious acknowledgement of brand loyalty with a formal press release for the rest of the world that outlined that the increased power wasn’t coming as a result of any engine modifications, but rather as a result of new SAE tests correcting the 2010 model year’s conservative horsepower figure.