The Model S Plaid is Tesla's pride and joy. It rockets from a standstill to 60 mph, humiliates cars at the drag strip, and does all those without looking like it can actually do them. But will it uphold its reputation when pitted against a heavily modified COPO Camaro?
The two of them met at the Runday Sunday at Bradenton Motorsports Park in Florida. Both of them left their stock configuration far behind. The Tesla Model S Plaid comes with a backseat delete and most rear material removed for a 140-pound (63.5-kilogram) weight save.
It kept the front seats along with all door panels, airbags, mirrors, the 20-speaker stereo, and subwoofer. The electric sedan now rides on 19-inch forged Intense wheels wrapped in Nitto NT555RII Drag Radials on the rear for extra traction.
Meanwhile, Greg Mannarino, known as "The Robin Hood of Wall Street" for his background in full-time trading of the capital markets, is no Robin Hood stealing from the rich to give to the poor at the drag strip. That is where he drives his heavily modified 2017 Chevrolet Camaro COPO that he bought in August 2023.
Back in 2017, Chevrolet rolled out the COPO Camaro with three engine options: a supercharged 350-cubic-inch (5.7-liter) supercharged V8, a 376-cubic-inch (6.2-liter) V8, and a naturally aspirated 427-cubic-inch (7.0-liter) V8.
Chevrolet claims that the supercharged 5.7-liter is the quickest of them all since it is rated at 580 horsepower and can run the quarter mile in the 8.5-second range at a speed of 162 mph (260.7 kph).
His muscle car sports a supercharged LSX engine for way more power than the stock version could offer. But those figures keep changing as Greg Mannarino keeps performing mods under the hood of his black and crimson Camaro, capable of covering the quarter mile in low eights.
Meanwhile, the Tesla Model S Plaid, driven by a longtime gearhead who used to build Camaros back in the 1980s, is powered by a tri-motor setup. The electric sedan throws 1,006 horsepower (1,020 metric horsepower) and 1,050 pound-feet (1,424 Newton meters) to the ground for a run from 0 to 60 mph (0 to 97 kph) in just 2.1 seconds, which propels it straight to supercar territory.
It runs the quarter mile in 9.2 seconds at 153 mph (246 kph) and hits a top speed of 200 mph (322 kph). But will it be able to pull off such a performance at the drag strip in Bradenton? Its best run ever was 9.15 seconds at 152 mph (244.6 kph).
Greg Mannarino's Camaro rockets along the strip, but will the Tesla's torque kick in and leave him in a cloud of dust? The Camaro was clocked at 8.38 seconds with 156 mph (251 kph), while the Model S Plaid pulled a 9.23-second run and 150.2 mph (241.7 kph).
Google News