What’s your favorite pony car? Based on sales statistics at least, it’s not the Camaro. This is why the development of a 7th generation Camaro has reportedly been cancelled, according to musclecars&trucks.com.
The current Camaro is built on the GM Alpha platform, shared with the soon-to-be-replaced Cadillac ATS and CTS. The replacement models use an updated Alpha platform, so you’d think it would be relatively easy for GM to make a new Camaro.
But the Camaro hasn’t always been successful enough to justify continued production. In 2002, it was discontinued, and didn’t make a return until 2009, where it sold well despite the crippled economy at the time, perhaps helped by having a starring role in the Transformers movie. But the current one has always struggled- it looked too familiar when it was launched, and the facelifted version is a prime example of cosmetic surgery gone wrong. So while the Mustang still sells well enough to survive Ford’s mass discontinuation of cars, and the Dodge Challenger sells better than the Durango SUV, the Camaro gets overlooked. Only 67k were sold in 2018, 25% less than the year before. With the poorly executed facelift, sales are unlikely to recover.
It’s a real shame, because the 6th-gen Camaro is a great car. True, its visibility is worse than pretty much any car on sale today, but it’s the best handling of all the current pony cars.
Nothing so far has been confirmed, with a GM spokesperson quoted as saying “While we will not engage in speculation, we will remind you of our recently announced updates coming to the Camaro lineup this fall. An all-new LT1 model will provide customers V8 power with the design and affordability of our LT trim. The award-winning SS model will feature a new front fascia from the Camaro Shock concept. All of our updates are customer-driven to improve the car and its driving experience”
If the reports are true, it’s still possible that someone at GM will step in and save the iconic model at the last minute like what happened to the Corvette in the 1990’s, when GM didn’t want to make a C5 Corvette. Hopefully that’s what will happen, but if not, you have until around 2023 to buy a Camaro.
