[sboden]

Oh well. I enjoyed not seeing my 09 370Z every time I turned around. I guess I can enjoy that with the camaro if the doom and gloom is correct. Nissan somehow survives with very low sales on Godzilla and the Z. Why can't Chevy? They just need to change expectations and look at is as a car which brings people into the showroom so they buy other cars.

[Number 3]

Originally Posted by Kobra_Klutch

Or maybe this: Chevy should just stop making entry level variants of the Camaro and focus more towards the performance oriented buyer if the car is being marketed as a true sports car. Skip the 2.0 or the V6 just make bad ass V8s; take it or leave it mentality. And if Chevy wants to make a sporty version V6 or 4 banger coupe call it something else and make the Camaro standout even more. Stop watering down the car just to give people an option to look cool; if so then put a 4 banger in the Corvette so more people can buy it. Hmmmn?

Originally Posted by Mustang Fanboy

The "watered down" cars are the only reason the platform exists. That is of course unless you want to start paying $80k for a base 1ss.

Yeah, you need the volume to cover the costs of the car. Cut it to the SS volume only and watch the price hike. It would essentially be a Corvette. There is a reason why the Corvette remains plastic and fiberglass. The tooling is far cheaper than metal stampings. It's how the Corvette remains hugely profitable at low volumes. The Camaro was designed, engineered and tooled for higher volumes.

Now does GM need two $55,000 cars in the same show room with one being a true sports car and the other being a sporty coupe? Watch that internal sales battle.

Originally Posted by JaxChris

What history are you quoting? The Camaro was canceled when sales volume dropped below 80,000/year over the preceding 36 months. That is 6,600/month. Chevy kept increasing the price and lowering production to combat sales declines, which actually made it worse. The cancellation notice went out to dealers and magazines in 1999 after the Mustang outsold the Camaro more than 2.5:1 in 1998. Production was stopped in May 2001 because sales were so slow they were able to begin the next model year earlier each year after it was known the 4th gen was being canned. That had the 2002 run finished in the middle of 2001 because of a glut of inventory due to pricing the car out of competition.

This is exactly what is happening now.

Year: Mustang#/Camaro#
94: 123,198/ 119,934
95: 185,986/ 122,844
96: 126,483/ 66,827
97: 100,254/ 95,812
98: 170,642/ 77,198
99: 126,067/ 42,098
00: 218,525/ 45,417
01: 155,162/ 29,009

We'll be lucky to see a 2021 Camaro. I don't think we'll get a 2022 55th Anniversary model.

As I"ve said in the past, the intended Gen5 Camaro architecture resulted in the original CTS. And yes, that decision was made in the late 90s. Of course there was that GM80 program too..................

I don't think GM is anywhere close to canceling the car. We would not see the hell bent for election ZL1 coming. A delay in the Z/28 might be an indicator.

Have to keep in mind, GM is hanging on to the ATS (25,000 per year) and the CTS (12,000 per year) and the Camaro will certainly help maintain those Cadillac products until they hit their stride...................which may be in the NG or A2XX.

GM clearly made choices to target a specific customer. Most of the people on this site are SS intenders. They may buy a V6 for L4 but everyone that cares enough about cars and specifically Camaros enough to come on this site regularly is not the typical car buyer.

GM has a car with VERY aggressive styling. It exudes things that excite people that do actually come here. BAD A$$.....'Merican Muscle. But I can assure you that a good chunk of female car buyers are not interested in a car like that. They aren't the ones that came on website crying that if the Camaro didn't weigh less than a Mustang then GM lied to them. They don't care what Car and Driver, Motor Trend or Automobile say. And I'm pretty sure if you looked at the break down of age and sex of the buyers there would follow a very interesting conversation. Same for Corvette buyers and Porsche buyers, predominantly male. And Ford has made a more livable car for people that don't care about performance, HP, 0 - 60, track days or even that it doesn't beat a Camaro. Love you guys like the car fanatics and Camaro lovers that you are, but nobody sees the many things that make the car special and unique for you that have bought it and come here every day to talk about also made it a car more limited in appeal. My only hope is that GM knew this going in and intended lower sales with a more focused car to it's historic V8 'Merican Muscle loving customers who are enamored with the aggressive styling and presence. Because if the $$ they spent developing the car needed 90 to 100,000 units per year, then the car is way under performing on the bottom line. Think of 100's of millions in development and tooling costs and half the volume you intended to pay it back.

Example $200,000,000 to develop the car. The difference between 60,000 units and 100,000 units is $2,000 per car or $3,300 per car. And when you consider it's about $1,400 in labor to build a Camaro (20 hours x $70/hour all in labor cost) that $1,300 difference is HUGE.

So this mythical "profit per vehicle" is highly dependent on meeting the business plan volumes. The only way the "profit per vehicle" works is if you plan for it.

Keep in mind, every GM vehicle has to help pay the bills for all the legacy costs. Even though hourly healthcare has been moved to the VEBA, GM still has 1,000,000 people drawing an annual pension ANNND still there is salary retiree healthcare until 65 (although not nearly as generous as hourly retirees get). So every Camaro has to pay it's way here too.

Guys, it's a great car. Yes, I'd like to see the volumes be higher simply because I want to see GM making cars SO great they can't make enough of them. In this case the Camaro is not yet that car.

And by the way, Buick is VERY safe. As long as China loves Buicks we will see Buicks partnered with GMC. And GMC exists for no other reason than Denali packages which are hugely profitable. The wider issue is whether Buick is Opel/Opel is Buick or how that ends up working out. Because Opel failed in China big time. Chevrolet failed in Europe big time. So GM still has to get the whole global brand thing worked out.

[JaxChris]

The entire Cadillac lineup shares a commonality of components and is easier to adapt multiple sizes of what is essentially the same car. The Camaro is a total bespoke vehicle within GM, even on the Alpha platform, that requires a much higher volume to maintain margins.

Plus Cadillac prices their cars very high, so as long as they don't make too many, they are profitable at almost any volume over 1,000 units per month worldwide. The Camaro would not survive at even 4k/month worldwide.

Yes, investing 200,000,000 in R&D plus tooling is a lot, but that is amortized over many, many years. The 5th gen Camaro exceeded sales goals and investment, so they jumped ahead of schedule to do the 6th gen right behind the Mustang 6th gen. With higher initial investment and lower sales, GM will be looking at whether they ride out this generation for 10 years or cut losses after 5 years.

Don't expect a 7th gen Camaro after only 5-6 years, the sales are not there to pay off. With raw material and components costing about 20-25k, labor being 2k, benefits & pensions costing another 5k, that leaves 2k for tooling before stacking on their 50% over cost margin and then adding dealer margin of 10 on top of that. So a 45k 2SS A8/NPP has about 7k in it for GM to play with (after their taxes) and the dealer has about 3.5k to play with.

At this rate, if they reschedule all profits toward paying off investment, the Camaro pays itself off in 1 year if no units were discounted. But units have been discounted, many of which have been heavily so. This drops their reinvestment figures to zero to maintain some type of profits for the rest of GM to share. At this rate, it will take 5 years to pay off investment before any profit expansion occurs. By this time, GM will be too disappointed in sales and margins and will kill the vehicle the moment it pays of its' investment.

Sales need to exceed 80,000 units each year for the next 4 years or the Camaro is dead again. Right now we're on pace for maybe 60,000. That isn't enough to keep this particular car alive. The 5th gen they went in cheap with an expectation of 50-65k units per year. They were very happy when it averaged 90k. That meant huge profits. This car costs more, has even bigger margins, got more investment and has lower sales that are requiring prolonged incentives (granted they have been pretty half-fast until this month).

Only late model Camaro that will be worth investing in is the last two years of the ZL1, making a weekend toy/garage queen out of that might pay off one day. Regulation will prevent the Camaro from making a third act. The Z28 is probably going to get canceled at this point, but GM is wondering how to make that happen without waving the doom flag too high and driving away sales of the other trims.

The actuaries at GM have no emotion about any vehicle.

[Kobra_Klutch]

Originally Posted by Number 3

Yeah, you need the volume to cover the costs of the car. Cut it to the SS volume only and watch the price hike. It would essentially be a Corvette. There is a reason why the Corvette remains plastic and fiberglass. The tooling is far cheaper than metal stampings. It's how the Corvette remains hugely profitable at low volumes. The Camaro was designed, engineered and tooled for higher volumes.

Now does GM need two $55,000 cars in the same show room with one being a true sports car and the other being a sporty coupe? Watch that internal sales battle.



As I"ve said in the past, the intended Gen5 Camaro architecture resulted in the original CTS. And yes, that decision was made in the late 90s. Of course there was that GM80 program too..................

I don't think GM is anywhere close to canceling the car. We would not see the hell bent for election ZL1 coming. A delay in the Z/28 might be an indicator.

Have to keep in mind, GM is hanging on to the ATS (25,000 per year) and the CTS (12,000 per year) and the Camaro will certainly help maintain those Cadillac products until they hit their stride...................which may be in the NG or A2XX.

GM clearly made choices to target a specific customer. Most of the people on this site are SS intenders. They may buy a V6 for L4 but everyone that cares enough about cars and specifically Camaros enough to come on this site regularly is not the typical car buyer.

GM has a car with VERY aggressive styling. It exudes things that excite people that do actually come here. BAD A$$.....'Merican Muscle. But I can assure you that a good chunk of female car buyers are not interested in a car like that. They aren't the ones that came on website crying that if the Camaro didn't weigh less than a Mustang then GM lied to them. They don't care what Car and Driver, Motor Trend or Automobile say. And I'm pretty sure if you looked at the break down of age and sex of the buyers there would follow a very interesting conversation. Same for Corvette buyers and Porsche buyers, predominantly male. And Ford has made a more livable car for people that don't care about performance, HP, 0 - 60, track days or even that it doesn't beat a Camaro. Love you guys like the car fanatics and Camaro lovers that you are, but nobody sees the many things that make the car special and unique for you that have bought it and come here every day to talk about also made it a car more limited in appeal. My only hope is that GM knew this going in and intended lower sales with a more focused car to it's historic V8 'Merican Muscle loving customers who are enamored with the aggressive styling and presence. Because if the $$ they spent developing the car needed 90 to 100,000 units per year, then the car is way under performing on the bottom line. Think of 100's of millions in development and tooling costs and half the volume you intended to pay it back.

Example $200,000,000 to develop the car. The difference between 60,000 units and 100,000 units is $2,000 per car or $3,300 per car. And when you consider it's about $1,400 in labor to build a Camaro (20 hours x $70/hour all in labor cost) that $1,300 difference is HUGE.

So this mythical "profit per vehicle" is highly dependent on meeting the business plan volumes. The only way the "profit per vehicle" works is if you plan for it.

Keep in mind, every GM vehicle has to help pay the bills for all the legacy costs. Even though hourly healthcare has been moved to the VEBA, GM still has 1,000,000 people drawing an annual pension ANNND still there is salary retiree healthcare until 65 (although not nearly as generous as hourly retirees get). So every Camaro has to pay it's way here too.

Guys, it's a great car. Yes, I'd like to see the volumes be higher simply because I want to see GM making cars SO great they can't make enough of them. In this case the Camaro is not yet that car.

And by the way, Buick is VERY safe. As long as China loves Buicks we will see Buicks partnered with GMC. And GMC exists for no other reason than Denali packages which are hugely profitable. The wider issue is whether Buick is Opel/Opel is Buick or how that ends up working out. Because Opel failed in China big time. Chevrolet failed in Europe big time. So GM still has to get the whole global brand thing worked out.

Number 3, thanks for your insight. I get it, I just wanted to stir the pot a little; dialogue helps.

I went to Beijing in 2008 just before the Summer Olympics with my wife. While I was there I noticed that most of the cars in the city were either an Audi or Buick sedans (in black or silver), I thought that was odd considering the population of China. I thought there would be more of a variety of cars as is in most countries I've visited. I joked with my wife and said that I needed to purchase stock in GM because based on what I saw the Buick was a cash cow there. Also this was around the time Buick was sponsoring Tiger Woods.

I haven't been back to China since then but it seems safe to assume that Buick still has a strong foothold in the country, probably to the tune of how the Ford 150 has in the U.S.

I have a choice to make Camaro 1LE/6M or Challenger T/A 392 A8; I don't want a manual but....

[13vertss]

I just read a report in March ford sales, that 37% of sales goes to fleet. They don't break down which cars, but that number is huge. Fleet sales is basically whole sale prices, thus not much profit per car, but make it up on volume. Is anyone surprised by this?

[SpeedIsLife]

Originally Posted by 13vertss/r's

I just read a report in March ford sales, that 37% of sales goes to fleet. They don't break down which cars, but that number is huge. Fleet sales is basically whole sale prices, thus not much profit per car, but make it up on volume. Is anyone surprised by this?

One guess as to which model is Ford's biggest fleet seller?

Hint: It's not the Mustang

[Bongos2U]

Focus?

[SpeedIsLife]

The F150 and the rest of the F series trucks...far and away.

[Bongos2U]

Originally Posted by SpeedIsLife

The F150 and the rest of the F series trucks...far and away.

Ahhh, yes !! When I read "best fleet seller", I automatically thought rental car.

[fastjohnny]

I was really surprised what some of the top sellers were for August, the Ford and Chevrolet trucks were the top 2 and the Nissan Rogue was a nother top seller which really blew my mind and Toyota Camry was really down from what it normally is one of the top sellers.

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk

[crysalis_01]

Originally Posted by Bongos2U

Ahhh, yes !! When I read "best fleet seller", I automatically thought rental car.

According to the Aug sales call, Ford's fleet distribution looked like the following:

- August: 21% - 11% Commercial, 6% Government, 4% Rental
- 2016 YTD: 32% - 13% Commercial, 6% Government, 13% Rental

And the only reason why Commercial isn't higher than rental YOY is the changeover happening with SuperDuty.

Also, the percentage of fleet YOY rental is only high at this point because of the "front loading" of rental distributions. That percentage will only decrease as the year closes out.

[90503]

This should bring up the sales numbers...lol...

https://www.cars.com/for-sale/search...rchSource=SORT

[crysalis_01]

Originally Posted by 90503

This should bring up the sales numbers...lol...

https://www.cars.com/for-sale/search...rchSource=SORT

[hotlap]

Originally Posted by 90503

This should bring up the sales numbers...lol...

https://www.cars.com/for-sale/search...rchSource=SORT

I looked up three of those prices at two different dealerships. Looks like a bunch of BS to me. This example has $5,600 in conditional offers to bring it from $23,489 to $17,889.

Even the $23,489 level is limited. Look at those rediculous limitations!

Must trade in a Camaro, tag bonus limited to first four buyer and MUST be paid in full by Sept 6, etc.