Take Me Home, Country Roads

TO (MIS)QUOTE THOREAU: WE WENT TO THE WOODS BECAUSE WE WISHED TO DRIVE DELIBERATELY.

- Daniel Pund

ONLY ABOUT A WEEK BEFORE WE DEPARTED on this particular comparison test, Ford Motor Company announced it would invest $500 million into electric-truck startup Rivian [see “Let’s Make a Deal,” page 18]. Then, on the rainy Tuesday we left the office for points south, General Motors’ automation division, Cruise, reported it had raised another $1.15 billion in funding. And over the last couple years, both Ford and GM have announced plans to discontinue a number of conventionally powered and configured vehicles.And yet, there we were, in rural Pennsylvania near the border with West Virginia, laying down hellacious side-by-side burnouts in two V-8-powered rear-drive two-doors that probably should be dead by now. But if the proliferation of their variants is any indication, these two apparent knuckle-draggers are actually thriving.

One quick note: Before we move on to the business of passing judgment on the Chevrolet Camaro SS 1LE and the Ford Mustang GT Performance Package Level 2 (PPL2), we must admit that only one of the two burnouts was hellacious. That would be the one performed in the Mustang. The Camaro, operated by a man who shall remain nameless and who is also the writer of this story, technically did a burnout. There was smoke. But it was nothing like the majestic county-wide fumigation performed by the Mustang’s driver. But how and why is it that, in the year of our overlords 2019, we’re still talking about that most Neanderthal of automotive buffoonery, the burnout? Let’s move on, shall we?