Big displacement, American muscle vs forced induction from lands afar: it goes without saying that this is the biggest battle in streets and on the tracks across the country today. In this video we venture to a back street in California where an American icon takes on what is regarded to be one of the most highly respected Japanese performance automobiles on the market today. The dynamics of the race in comparison to generalized expectations may surprise you.

Failure to launch?

From the beginning of the street competition we’re graced with a slew of unexpected elements. The second the flagger’s arms drop, the supercharged LSX Chevelle hops out to a quick lead. The GT-R is unable to take advantage of its complex AWD system and falls behind immediately, never to prevail again.

When you pit two icons against each other, naturally there is sure to be some controversy no matter what the outcome. As you can see in the comments section of this video, this situation is no different.

Maybe we didn’t look hard enough, but to our satisfaction we saw no sign of the fanboys knee-jerk reaction related to how well the GT-R would do around the twisties in comparison to the sloppy handling of old school muscle. We do however concur with the comments demanding a rerun – we’d love to see both cars at the top of their game (maybe on a drag strip). Regardless of personal preference, one must admit that both of these machines are truly bad and demand to be respected. Which do you root for?