[arpad_m]

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

Corvette doesn't have to reach beyond the core group of performance car enthusiasts to survive. Camaro (and Mustang and Charger / Challenger) absolutely have to. The compromises made in the 6th Gen Camaro make it very hard for a first time sporty car buyer coming out of a more mainstream vehicle come to love it on first impression.

That right there is probably the (sad) truth. I think we have finally distilled the essence of the answer to the question in the OP. Thanks a lot, James, I appreciate the detail as well.

I like the C8, by the way, great design and obviously a massive effort put into its powertrains as well, not bashing it at all, it just doesn't evoke much of a desire in me, if that makes sense.

[CHASLT1]

Not crazy on the looks of the C8 and the trans scares me out of warranty. Bad enough with the A8's.

[BluePhoenix]

It's a topic that's beating a dead horse at this point. We all know the obvious. No marketing, nothing at all to drive excitement for the car, etc. The discontinuation announcement fueled some orders and sales. No it's very hard to find a nice used Camaro period. Most newer ones especially 1LE'sdon't last on dealer lots more than a day or two

[genxer]

Yeah, rehash thread. Agree with the earlier quote about 'you can sell an old man, a young man's car'. Trick is, it is still an old man's lux GT. Track times with high trims are still hiding sportiness misses, affordability loss. Dollar debasement and youth car culture issues are tied together. Part of marketing should be understanding what's wanted. Clickbait tea leaves make me expect their leadership misses the mark again.

[shaffe]

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

Here's why there is such a difference between the Camaro and the Corvette. Camaro, like Mustang, has to generate sufficient volume to make the program profitable or it doesn't make sense. And it has to do that within a certain price band. In order to fit the car within that price band, it has to sell beyond the performance car enthusiast population. Those are the people that are more likely to be considering it as an only car. If it's an only car, it needs to do car things well. Camaro does those things "less well" than Mustang, Charger, or Challenger. So what we see as "shortcomings" the person who's replacing his Ford Escape or her Chevy Cruze will see those shortcomings as deal breakers.

Corvette is what it is. Performance first. And it is rarely an only car. My first Corvette was an only car. For about 6 months. I was 26, had just bought my first house, and I was single. Then winter hit. Bought a used Buick Skylark T-Type with the quickness Before that, Mustangs and Fieros were my "only cars" and they fit the bill just fine. Camaro needed to do the same in the Chevrolet portfolio, but Corvette never needed to. Volume is less important because Corvette has a lot of room for pricing flexibility. Today prices range from $68,300 to a hiccup below $200k. The fact that it costs about half what its primary competitors cost reinforces GM's ability to price profitably for every option. The person buying a Corvette could care less about back seat room (don't have / don't need) and as long as you can see around the curves at Waterford Hills or VIR or Road America it's all good. Sure there are people who never take their Corvette to the track, but they buy it because it's ability to kill on the track translates into street cred and completely forgives any shortcomings as a daily driver.

Corvette doesn't have to reach beyond the core group of performance car enthusiasts to survive. Camaro (and Mustang and Charger / Challenger) absolutely have to. The compromises made in the 6th Gen Camaro make it very hard for a first time sporty car buyer coming out of a more mainstream vehicle come to love it on first impression.

He said what I tried to say just 1000 times better as he usually does lol.

The bolded part is really what hammers it home. Ignore the V8 trims, ignore the rare performance trims. Just look at the base engine car, the one that makes up (or at least used to make up) like 70% of the cars volume. Look at someone who is going to be daily driving that car, the car that does car stuff better is going to win that comparison most of the time. It's really only when you get to the performance trims where people can say I don't care if I'm a coffin or the visibility sucks this thing goes like a rocket and corners like its on rails.

[Eric10905]

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

So, after summarizing 5 pages of input it seems to be any combination of

• Reduced overall market for muscle cars
• High price
• Poor visibilty, trunk access and rear seat accomodation
• Lack of advertising
• GM didn't do enough to refresh it
• Youth today are idiots and don't recognize a great car when they see one

Did I miss anything?

I'll add one more: majority of people don't care about good handling, cornering cars. Maybe that falls into the first reason of reduce market for sports cars?
To my experience, most people are afraid of 'cornering'. GM made a corner gobbling monster, imo, esp at its price point. I, in a somewhat judgmental manner, think most Americans are bar stool racers. They sit around and talk HP numbers. (How often does someone ask you that of your car - how much HP does it have?) And think that whoever has the highest HP number wins. I think it's why ford changed the Mustang GT to 460, and the Dodge with 485 or whatever it was. Never mind weight to hp ratios, gearing or anything else.... I just think the car did something incredibly well that most people just don't care about.
Just another perspective. ;-)

[Number 3]

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

Here's why there is such a difference between the Camaro and the Corvette. Camaro, like Mustang, has to generate sufficient volume to make the program profitable or it doesn't make sense. And it has to do that within a certain price band. In order to fit the car within that price band, it has to sell beyond the performance car enthusiast population. Those are the people that are more likely to be considering it as an only car. If it's an only car, it needs to do car things well. Camaro does those things "less well" than Mustang, Charger, or Challenger. So what we see as "shortcomings" the person who's replacing his Ford Escape or her Chevy Cruze will see those shortcomings as deal breakers.

Corvette is what it is. Performance first. And it is rarely an only car. My first Corvette was an only car. For about 6 months. I was 26, had just bought my first house, and I was single. Then winter hit. Bought a used Buick Skylark T-Type with the quickness Before that, Mustangs and Fieros were my "only cars" and they fit the bill just fine. Camaro needed to do the same in the Chevrolet portfolio, but Corvette never needed to. Volume is less important because Corvette has a lot of room for pricing flexibility. Today prices range from $68,300 to a hiccup below $200k. The fact that it costs about half what its primary competitors cost reinforces GM's ability to price profitably for every option. The person buying a Corvette could care less about back seat room (don't have / don't need) and as long as you can see around the curves at Waterford Hills or VIR or Road America it's all good. Sure there are people who never take their Corvette to the track, but they buy it because it's ability to kill on the track translates into street cred and completely forgives any shortcomings as a daily driver.

Corvette doesn't have to reach beyond the core group of performance car enthusiasts to survive. Camaro (and Mustang and Charger / Challenger) absolutely have to. The compromises made in the 6th Gen Camaro make it very hard for a first time sporty car buyer coming out of a more mainstream vehicle come to love it on first impression.

And the other issue is that the Corvette from the beginning is set up as low volume car that can be profitable at lower volumes. As much as everyone over the years has bitched about the "plastic" Corvette, the tooling for door, fenders etc. is much less when you are using molded parts vs. stamped. As just an example. But if your capital is less, then the business case changes.

The Gen6 Camaro was forced to use the Alpha architecture. It was GM's only RWD choice to make a Camaro. Take one look at the aluminium cast front strut mounts and that will tell you all you need to know. And the business case for the Camaro was very likely built around 75 to 80,000 units. And when you pick an expensive architecture to start with you set a very high bar, even when you are sharing a manufacturing facility.

So, yeah, you can get into the tooling was paid for (GM typically used 18 months) you still have to sell a lot of cars to keep it going.

And as this conversation goes on, I have to remind everyone that advertising is a subset of marketing. The car not being advertised doesn't mean it wasn't marketed. The Mustang was not advertised either and it was pretty much number one in the segment for all of Gen6. Just because Vin Diesel was in some cool commercials doesn't mean GM didn't know what it was doing. If you have to pay Vin $5,000,000 you better be selling another 5,000 Camaros. GM knew it wouldn't/couldn't.

It was a fabulous car designed for Camaro owners who already had a Camaro. It was NOT designed to attract non Camaro owners. THAT was GM's failure in this. Nothing more. It was a car with very specific appeal, and they did an outstanding job of making a car for those customers. You see it in years of passionate posts in Camaro5/6 and in this very thread.

[Joshinator99]

Originally Posted by Eric10905

I'll add one more: majority of people don't care about good handling, cornering cars. Maybe that falls into the first reason of reduce market for sports cars?
To my experience, most people are afraid of 'cornering'. GM made a corner gobbling monster, imo, esp at its price point. I, in a somewhat judgmental manner, think most Americans are bar stool racers. They sit around and talk HP numbers. (How often does someone ask you that of your car - how much HP does it have?) And think that whoever has the highest HP number wins. I think it's why ford changed the Mustang GT to 460, and the Dodge with 485 or whatever it was. Never mind weight to hp ratios, gearing or anything else.... I just think the car did something incredibly well that most people just don't care about.
Just another perspective. ;-)

This is a really good point. Most people view these as “muscle cars” and the fact that the old Challenger outsold the Camaro handily proved that corner carving isn’t important to most muscle car owners. 0-60 and 1/4 mile are the big numbers that matter to most. I love that the Camaro can do it all, but it didn’t make for a car with much practicality. Us crazies don’t care but normies do lol

[bishopts]

Originally Posted by Number 3

It was NOT designed to attract non Camaro owners. THAT was GM's failure in this. Nothing more. It was a car with very specific appeal, and they did an outstanding job of making a car for those customers. You see it in years of passionate posts in Camaro5/6 and in this very thread.

My 2017 is my first camaro. I was actually going to get a c6 grand sport. But i saw a 6th gen camaro at the Texas State Fair and loved the look of it.

I agree that people are afraid of doing most performance things that sports cars and bikes can do. They usually limit it to taking off from a light faster than the minivan next to them. The stolen ones that you see on tiktok in street takeovers get driven harder because why not? Its not theirs...

[vince3]

Chevrolet Camaro US Sales vs. Average Testosterone Levels in Men (1985–2024)

Data Table

Year Camaro US Sales Est. Testosterone (ng/dL) Notes
1985 180,018 640 Peak 3rd-gen sales
1986 192,219 634 All-time sales high
1987 137,760 627
1988 96,275 621
1989 110,739 615
1990 34,986 609
1991 100,838 603
1992 70,007 596
1993 39,103 591
1994 119,799 585
1995 122,738 579
1996 61,362 573
1997 60,202 567
1998 54,026 562
1999 42,098 556
2000 45,461 550
2001 29,009 545
2002 41,776 539 Last year before hiatus
2003–2009 0 (hiatus) Camaro discontinued
2010 81,299 470 5th-gen launch
2011 88,249 463
2012 84,391 455
2013 80,567 448
2014 86,297 440
2015 77,502 433
2016 72,705 425 6th-gen launch
2017 67,940 418
2018 50,963 410
2019 48,265 403
2020 29,775 395 COVID impact
2021 21,893 388
2022 24,652 380
2023 31,028 373
2024 ~5,859 ~365 Production ended Jan 20

[genxer]

Originally Posted by Eric10905

I'll add one more: majority of people don't care about good handling, cornering cars. Maybe that falls into the first reason of reduce market for sports cars?
To my experience, most people are afraid of 'cornering'. GM made a corner gobbling monster, imo, esp at its price point. I, in a somewhat judgmental manner, think most Americans are bar stool racers. They sit around and talk HP numbers. (How often does someone ask you that of your car - how much HP does it have?) And think that whoever has the highest HP number wins. I think it's why ford changed the Mustang GT to 460, and the Dodge with 485 or whatever it was. Never mind weight to hp ratios, gearing or anything else.... I just think the car did something incredibly well that most people just don't care about.
Just another perspective. ;-)

Also aiming for nimble is very doable and what trims exist for. The ATS form factors are kind of the proof of the usefulness posts. A fat guy wanting performance fits in that lighter body. If extra room is wanted, even the cops have already moved to Explorer Tahoe sizes. My fear is GM hopes to set the table for a gas or BEV choice platform car that is a porker.

The alpha bodies are probably still heavier than they should be. Making full track times a 6th gen benchmark skews speeds higher than what gets seen on the road. Hp and tires hide mass there better. Too many trims ride Caddy bank vault soft, suspension should have been fine being cheaper. Some platform features were unnecessary.

Follow the leader on twisty roads, when they go to pull a gap is the every guy benchmark (but also AutoX). I've seen work van drivers drive harder than the Cadillacs. I told a former coworker once with a V6 6th gen, I didn't think her car could out handle another coworkers modded fox body, and if I ever pulled the trigger on a boomer cruiser it pushes me to change approach to looking at a V8. That money went to property.

I just believe it's likely useful enough and more affordable is untapped.

[Smokin19]

For all the opinions and pundits on this thread one thing is missing.

No one really misses what they have until it's gone and that's the legacy of the Camaro. Enjoy your Camaro and drive it while you can.

[CHASLT1]

If they made a small versioner with a flat 500hp i would be in a flash. No clue why they never did at least offer up a Miata with a nice 6 banger with 320hp and 350lb ft.

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by CHASLT1

If they made a small versioner with a flat 500hp i would be in a flash. No clue why they never did at least offer up a Miata with a nice 6 banger with 320hp and 350lb ft.

Saturn Sky Redline / Pontiac Solstice GXP?