Clash of the coupes: Ford Mustang Mach 1 v Toyota Supra

Ford’s Mach 1 Mustang has answered our prayers for a properly track capable pony car, but there’s also a healthy dose of drag racing heritage bundled into the historic nameplate.

Among the raft of changes to the most dynamic Mustang yet, sits a slightly-massaged 345kW/556Nm output sourced from a glorious naturally-aspirated 5.0-litre V8.

Enter the 285kW/500Nm Toyota Supra. It’s a familiar rivalry that spans generations: a brutish old-school American muscle car sits at the traffic lights, and along comes a younger Japanese-flavoured coupe that trades cubic centimetres of swept capacity for force-fed pounds of boosted oxygen.

Whatever shall happen when the lights go green?

To simulate the experience, we headed out to Heathcote drag strip and pit the two sports coupes against each other in a variety of circumstances, from a launch control race mode start, a rolling start, and a comfort mode street start.

Both rear drive coupes risk devolving into wheelspin off the line, and require a dash of finessing to cleanly get off the mark.

Immediately, the lighter Supra finds a traction advantage – still spinning its wheels into third gear – but lunging ahead of the Mach 1 Mustang which struggles to overcome its own might.

Turning all assistance systems back on, and lining up for a comfort mode street start sees the Supra slow to react as the Mustang jumps ahead. A seemingly well-calibrated ESC system earned its keep in the Toyota, with the light flashing all the way up until 125km/h – clawing its way back and edging out the Mustang for a photo finish.

A roll race in automatic mode saw the Supra’s ZF gearbox decisively kick down and power on, while the Mach 1’s ten-speed gearbox took a little extra time to skip down from fifth to second and climb its way back – giving the Supra a fairly convincing win.

For a Mustang desperate for redemption, we repeated the roll race in manual mode locking in a second-gear rollout. It was a harder-fought battle, but the Supra was able to edge away to cross the line with barely a car length to spare.

By day's end, the Mustang bested a 0-100km/h time of 4.86 seconds, clearing the quarter mile in 12.89 seconds at 185km/h.

The Toyota Supra was easier to launch, and managed a best time of 4.49 seconds from 0-100km/h. It crossed the quarter mile marker four-tenths ahead of the Mustang, at 12.55 seconds and 187km/h.

So is a 3.0-litre turbo inline-six better than a big old-school naturally aspirated 5.0-litre V8? At the drag strip, maybe. But the noise, and what it does for the soul? For some, that’s worth the price of admission alone.