04-03-06: Ann Arbor, MI -PR Newswire: Since its unveiling at the 2006 North American International Auto Show last January in Detroit, the Chevrolet Camaro concept has intrigued car lovers of all kinds. Will it perform like the Camaros of old? What engine, suspension, powertrain configurations will it carry? Will it go into production? When will it be available for purchase?

While General Motors has not yet committed to a production version of the Camaro, Motor Trend magazine is taking the creative leap in its May issue. The magazine has pitted a series of production-possible Camaros against the Ford Mustang in several performance simulations to imagine how they will stack up against each other. And performing this ultimate simulation is Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Mechanical Simulation Corporation's CarSim(R) 6, a software package for simulating the dynamic vehicle behavior of cars, light trucks and utility vehicles.

"It was an exciting -- and challenging -- project to undertake," said Mechanical Simulation's Phil Mather, technical support specialist. "The data needed to create these simulations was hard to come by, so we had to make a lot of assumptions. But we were able to gather enough engineering data to make our assumptions pretty reliable."
CarSim animates simulated proving ground tests, and generates over 500 output variables that can be plotted and analyzed.

For the Motor Trend simulation, Mather utilized a good deal of existing information about the 2006 Ford Mustang GT. "We worked with General Motors to get enough general information about the Camaro concept car suspension, tires, brakes, powertrain and performance targets to build a representative simulation in CarSim," he said. Next was 3D road information. "Although CarSim can duplicate any road input, for this simulation we used flat roads with no elevation or camber changes.
"Then we used existing performance results published by Motor Trend about the Ford Mustang GT to recreate those tests with the Motor Trend results as a target. This would level the playing field between the vehicles," Mather explained.
Seven different cars were tested by simulation for this experiment - the Mustang GT, three concept Camaros (with V6, LS2 and LS7 engines), a V6 Mustang and two theoretical Mustangs (Boss 330 with 389 hp and Shelby GT500 with 475 hp). CarSim performed four simulated tests on the vehicles:

- Figure 8 Test,
- Acceleration from a clutch-drop start to measure quarter-mile times
- Braking, using anti-lock braking systems for both vehicles
- Slalom testing

So, did the Mustang or the Camaro win the simulated challenge? For the answers, photographs and animations, look in the May 2006 edition of Motor Trend magazine, or visit www.motortrend.com or www.carsim.com.