Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallboy
And over 240,000 weren't Mustangs. Using your parameters, the Camaro is a better car than the Mustang.
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That is true, but the argument is that the Camaro is sweeping the market on looks alone. Just comparing last months Camaro sales to the Mustang's would be a better formula for comparison. The Mustang still controls 39% of the market after 8 years of sales and even that still confuses me. Its not going to get any better for the Mustang from here on out, it's all about sustaining sales at this point.
I will argue that the Camaro is a better car hands down and I'm sure that will upset some people. It depends on what makes the car a better car... To some it would be sales volume and the volumes of sales for the Mustang happened way before the Camaro was even thought of. Some would say that performance is primarily the key factor when comparing cars. Then you have cost and quality and as subjective as looks are, that is another factor in which cars are said to be "better". I personally give the Mustang the performance edge, on average the Mustang is about $1500 dollars cheaper, each of the cars have their quality issues and the 5th Gen didn't win me over in the looks department when I tested one in 2009. So, I will lean to sales to determine if it is "better".
If the Camaro wasn't outselling the Mustang right now it would be a very bad situation. The Camaro is only 2 years old and sales actually peaked last spring for the coupe and then declined almost 50% in the fall and winter. With the introduction of the convertible, sales returned back to the spring 2010 sales numbers but sure enough, the numbers will return back to normal late summer and on into 2012. Right now, the brand new Camaro convertible is making up about 50% of sales and was strategically released to sustain sales... if it wasn't for the strategic release of the convertible.. the Mustang may have very well been the sales leader this month. Typically, convertible's are not a very big seller. Ford only sold 15,703 2011 Mustang's combined, this includes the 9,645 V6's, the 5,126 5.0 GT's and the 932 GT500's. The Mustang convertible initially accounted for almost 30% of Mustang's sold in 2005. At that time, 1 out of every 2 sports coupes/sports cars sold in the US was a Mustang. Now, the Mustang convertible is down to about 21% production volume... another example of the more successful a product sales in the beginning, the less it will sell tomorrow...
http://www.carmemories.com/cgi-bin/v...erience_id=957
240,000 people chose not to buy a Mustang and elected to buy another pony car since April 2009... but, almost 800,000 people have already purchased a S197 new since 2005. Most of those 800,000 Mustang's were undoubtedly sold by their original owners and perhaps another percentage were sold again... making the S197 Mustang pretty circulated automobile. It's still pretty early to tell but it is safe to assume that the 5th Gen Camaro will never reach the sales volume that the S197 Mustang did. Even if GM decided to push the 5th gen Camaro out to 2017, at the rate of current sales, the 5th gen Camaro will not sell even half of what the S197 did. Ford will be capitalizing from the S197 sales for another decade in the aftermarket. This is something GM has to consider when the Alpha steps on deck, should they prematurely end the life of the 5th gen Camaro just to chase the Mustang III? or should they tough it out and build an aftermarket around the LS3/L99?
Regardless, sales are a factor when determining superiority. Right now, the Camaro and Mustang are about 54/46 in sales since the Camaro came back April 2009. Even though there were 675,000 Mustangs on the streets when the first Camaro was sold, I don't think it is fair to ignore those sales. Every statistic is centered around the Camaro's release date and has a negative effect on the Mustang and Challengers numbers. I don't think the competition should be made to look like fools because the Camaro couldn't stay in production... Is it fair that the Camaro wasn't around between 2005 and 2009? No... but I sure the hell are not going to pat them on the back for it...