Quote:
Originally Posted by b4z
You meant 2011 i think. As the economy improves and the Zl1 comes out we could definitely see 12,000 sold in 2012. Although i suspect Zl1s will only be in 15,000 or less a year sales range.
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The ZL1 won't be tipping the scales dramatically, If they took 7500 pre-orders for the ZL1 (unlikely) and produced and shipped them all at once those ZL1's would cannibalize the total Camaro production. Oshawa can only produce 10,000 Camaro's a month comfortably... the more ZL1's they make, the less regular Camaro's they can make and sales numbers would be the same. Oshawa is already running 3 shifts, there isn't much more they can do... and you still have to worry about QC's too. If GM put incentives on those 2010's then maybe they could break 11k but just pumping out 10,000 Camaro's and selling 12,000 won't cut it. It's safe to say that every single sell we see over the average 5000 sales in Jan/Feb are special order convertibles. Next month sales will be a bit lower, June will be lower yet as special orders are taken on the new 2012's. By the time the ZL1 comes out, the coupe sales will be at an all time low, the vert sales in the winter will be almost zero and the 2000 or so initial ZL1 sales will bring them up to where the Camaro's sales were at in Jan 2011.
When a new model is introduced in the lineup, those production numbers have to come from somewhere. High gas prices will have the V6 eating into the V8's production, Convertibles will eat into the Coupe, the ZL1 will eat into the base cars production... We were lead to believe that the introduction of a new model would stack sales on top of the existing sales but that is incorrect... In order to sell and produce convertibles you have to halt production on the coupe because Oshawa is already at the maximum production capacity. Ford only works a single shift at Flatrock, it is physically impossible for them to sell any more Mustang's but if they had to, they could add a second shift to meet demand.. but they won't have to, the demand for the Mustang that has sold almost 800,000 units is naturally falling... Everyone has had an S197 Mustang... who is still buying these (other than the Boss and GT500) is beyond me...
Edit: Your dealer is building inventory for the summer.
Edit #2: I do not think the ZL1 will see 15,000 built in the first year. The production will probably be similar to the GT500 at or around 5000. If you take a poll from this website to get a good idea of just how many people even care about the ZL1 (like the "who wants an automatic ZL1" poll), you will see that only about 2000 Camaro enthusiast are even remotely interested in the ZL1. Only 25% of those will actually buy one and that leaves the impulse buyers (which make up the majority of sales) to fill in the blanks. It wouldn't surprise me if only 3-4000k ZL1's were sold next year. Gas prices, the high MSRP and dealer mark-up will limit the sales.. and a winter release will help with a slow start as well...