Quote:
Originally Posted by gringo
I wouldn't say the success of the 5th gen was due to the halo effect of it being the Bumble Bee car in the movie. 7 years of pent up demand and a drop dead gorgeous design is what made it so successful.
You can blame the decreasing quality of the Transformers franchise all you want, but the 6th gen sales woes are primarily due to the restyle. Yeah, styling still matters in this market segment.
The Challenger is expected to continue on for the long term. So, it's only logical to think that GM would have a competitor in the muscle car segment as the Camaro moves up into more of a sports car territory. However, this is a would've, could've, should've been. More CUV's is where the market is right now and that's what we got with the new Blazer for '19.
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I didn't say it was just due to Transformers. It was the combination of Transformers and the return of the nameplate. The pent up demand would have dried out most likely by the 2012-2013 MY, but the 5th gen remained strong through out the generation.
I am also not blaming just the decreasing halo from the transformers franchise either for the 6th gens downfall. It's part of the equation. The Challenger has been the same car for the last 10 years on the same 20 year old platform with some styling updates along the way. It was bringing up the rear in a very distant third until Dodge slapped a 707 HP engine into it and successfully marketed it. Cause if it is the styling of the Challenger that is causing the uprising, it wouldn't have been averaging 3000 sales a month when Mustang and 5th gen Camaro was pulling in 7000-10,000 sales a month before the Hellcat. The yuppies are buying the Challenger now because of the Hellcat. Sort of like people who buy a 320i and slap a M3 badge on it because they want people to think they have a Hellcat instead of a V6 Challenger or R/T. You can also argue with the market shifting towards CUV's/practical cars, the Challenger is the only vehicle in the segment that has the most practicality to sell to the family.
A Chevelle is just not going to happen. GM doesn't have a platform for it, would still overlap with the Camaro too much, and they are done with just straight line machines.