The Fast Lane recently visited Bandimere Speedway in Colorado for some good ol' quarter-mile racing. Roman Mica picked a Dodge Charger Pursuit as his weapon of choice, Andre Smirnov took the Ford F-150 Raptor R, and Tommy Mica chose a manual-equipped C6 Corvette with the LS2 small block.
Roman and Andre line up first, and whoever proves faster in the quarter mile gets to race Tommy. But first, let's talk some numbers. The most powerful Ford in production today is the F-150 Raptor R, an off-road leviathan with a curb weight of 5,950 pounds (2,699 kilograms). The ex-police sedan is quite a bit lighter, tipping the scales at 4,522 pounds (2,051 kilograms).
Four-wheel drive by default, the R in Raptor R stands for the Predator supercharged V8 that premiered a few years back in the Mustang Shelby GT500 with 760 horsepower on deck. Already taken to 800-ish ponies in the Mustang GTD, the Predator develops 700 horsepower at 6,650 revolutions per minute in the R. As for peak torque, Ford quotes 640 pound-feet (868 Nm) at 4,250 spinnies.
The Charger Pursuit in the video below is a 2019 model with the 5.7-liter HEMI and all-wheel drive. Retail cars, by comparison, are optionally available with all-wheel drive only in combination with the 3.6-liter Pentastar.
This police-spec vehicle also relies on a five-speed auto from the DaimlerChrysler era instead of an eight-speed unit developed by ZF. Being naturally aspirated, the smallest third-gen HEMI produces 370 horsepower at 5,250 revolutions per minute and 395 pound-feet (536 Nm) at 4,200 spinnies in the 2019 Charger Pursuit.
It's pretty clear the four-door sedan doesn't stand a chance, but care to guess how big of a difference there is between these vehicles? Andre clocked 13.087 seconds at 106.51 miles per hour (171.41 kilometers per hour), whereas Roman couldn't do better than 16.518 seconds at 86.73 miles per hour (139.57 kilometers per hour).
Moving over to the C6, this one is an early car with the LS2 small block. In this application, it produces a respectable 400 horsepower and 400 pound-feet (542 Nm) at full chatter. Even lighter than the Charger Pursuit, the manual-equipped Corvette also runs wider tires out back. Tommy didn't warm up said tires before the dig race. It would have been in vain anyway because that F-150 Raptor R is far more capable in the quarter mile.
Andre blitzed to the finish line in 13.142 seconds at 105.80 miles per hour (170.26 kilometers per hour), which is one tenth off his previous elapsed time. As for Tommy, the time slip read 14.903 seconds at 101.13 miles per hour (162.75 kilometers per hour). Not bad for a naturally-aspirated engine at nearly a mile above sea level, but rather slow compared to the C8 Stingray.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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