Chevy Camaro Sales Spike 110% As the V8 Icon Nears Its Demise
The threat of losing the Camaro as we know it is apparently boosting sales in a big way.
Sales of Chevrolet's last stick-shift V8 pony car, the Camaro, rose 110.3% in Q2 as compared to the same period last year. In 2022, just 4,545 deliveries of the two-door were made between April and June. This year, that number is 9,557, a gain of more than 5,000 units.
The death of the current sixth-generation Camaro was announced back in late March, which means the rise in sales could be attributed to the car's imminent discontinuation. General Motors will keep building Camaros for a while longer, until January 2024, so we'll get another opportunity to see if the end of the line for the coupe is really boosting sales.
Improved Camaro sales also aren't just a quarterly phenomenon. Year-to-date, sales are up 54% versus 2022. This time last year, Chevy had sold 11,255 of the cars. That figure has increased by more than 6,000 units to 17,337 in 2023.
All of this being said, sales of the Camaro have been trending down for a long time, with the vehicle struggling to keep up with the Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger, the latter of which is also on the chopping block—at least in its current form. The Mustang, on the other hand, just got refreshed for its seventh generation, although it is very similar to the outgoing sixth-gen car.
To mark the end of production, Chevy has announced a special Collector’s Edition model, which effectively opens up a few new paint colors and options combinations. There is also a Garage56 edition to celebrate the NASCAR ZL1 Camaro's success at Le Mans. Neither of these special editions offers mechanical changes to the basic car in its respective trims.
Rumors indicate that we may get a 5.5-liter LT6-powered version of the car before production ends in January, but these reports are unconfirmed. We've previously heard that this car was planned and canceled, although that was also unverifiable information. More likely than not, the car will die with a whimper rather than a bang, and its replacement won't be something familiar.
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