Last week’s season opener of The Grand Tour saw Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May travel to Detroit, where they climbed behind the wheel of three extremely powerful muscle cars.
Clarkson chose the well-balanced 700 HP Mustang RTR, Hammond went with the drag race-tuned Dodge Demon, and May ended up with the most powerful car of the group, the Hennessey Camaro ZL1 ‘Exorcist’ that’s good for 1,000 horses.
Because Dodge specified that its car wasn’t allowed to drag race on the streets, Hammond and his Demon had to sit this one out. A pity, since it would have spiced things up even more.
Even so, the other two are far from pushovers. The Camaro features an upgrade package from Hennessey that bumps output to an amazing 1,000 HP at 6,000 rpm and 966 lb-ft (1,309 Nm) of torque at 4,400 rpm. Unleash it and you will end up doing in excess of 220 mph (354 km/h), although the tuner has taken it up to “just” 217 mph (349 km/h).
Clarkson’s choice, the Mustang with the ‘RTR Design Package’, sports forged alloy wheels, custom body stripes, new LED daytime running lights and one of three performance kits: Spec 1, Spec 2 or Spec 3.
The controversial show host was, of course, driving the full-on Spec 3 that’s packing an improved 5.0-liter V8 with 700 HP (522 kW). Engine mods include a performance supercharged, intercooler and an upgraded fuel injection system.
Check out the clip below in order to see which of the tuned muscle cars that were allowed to race came out on top.