For the third straight month, the Chevy Camaro beat the Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger in the latest volley of the muscle car wars — sales. Full numbers below.

August Sales in total units sold:

Chevy Camaro: 8,680
Ford Mustang: 6,289
Dodge Challenger: 1,132

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Filed under: Car Buying, Convertible, Coupe, Performance, Chevrolet, Ford



We'll have our monthly By the Numbers post ready in a jiffy, but one thing that stood out after glancing at the monthly automotive sales figures is that the Chevy Camaro has outsold the Ford Mustang for the third month in a row. While it's still a bit too early to call this an official trend, it's clear that there was a significant backlog of demand for GM's latest muscle car. That much was a given with The General reporting over 10,000 advance orders for the car before it even hit dealer lots.

We're not exactly shocked that the Camaro - with 8,680 total sales vs 6,289 for the Stang - is selling at a healthy clip, but it is a bit surprising to see the Mustang drop over 23 percent over the previous year. After all, Ford's pony car was heavily refreshed for the 2010 model year and has received excellent reviews from the motoring press, ourselves included. Perhaps some Mustang intenders are holding out for the expected 400+ horsepower 5.0-liter, 32-valve DOHC Coyote engine or turbocharged EcoBoost V6? Time will tell...
Broken Record: Camaro outsells Mustang for third straight month originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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not suprising at all. most of the owners of the challengers & mustangs i have spoken with told me they feel buyers remorse and regret their purchase as they should have waited for the camaro to buy one.

 

Ya, I've seen several Mustangs and Challengers intentionally run into poles so that the owners could collect the insurance (no trade-in value, you know) and go buy a new Camaro.

 

I've never seen that gold color on a Mustang. Kinda cool.

I hate to say it, but if I had the money for a new car today, I'd go test drive a Mustang GT (and an SS).

I'd wait for the new motor before actually buying the Mustang though.

 

by almost 2400 units. great news.

jakerobb, theres a mustang at a local dealer for sale in that color. i can call and get you a appt. setup if your looking for one

 

I'd have to agree with you on all points (don't faint on me, now ).

One pulled into my parking lot last week in that color. To say it stands out is an understatement.

I've had a very short drive in an SS, and got to put a few miles on a new Mustang GT (didn't have the Track Pack) immediately afterwards. I felt more comfortable driving the GT.

From the seat of the pants, the GT felt just as quick if not a shade quicker (I'm guessing due to Camaro's seemingly more solid body and suspension tune that I suppose takes alot of the edge off). The Camaro will take some getting accustomed to driving, while the Mustang feels like you can just go right out without a learning curve by comparison.

Camaro does snap far more heads at stop lights, though..... by like a factor of 100.



"Kick's Mustang's ***"???

I doubt a automated "Newsbot" wrote that headline.

The Mustang is down 2,400 to the Camaro.

I wouldn't call that having one's "*** kicked".

Good beating, maybe. But we'll see if the Camaro has legs beyond pent up demand in 6-8 months (after the winter slowdown in regular demand enables Camaro to catch up with the demand of Camaro enthusiasts and regular buyers have to sustain sales when spring rolls around).

Mustang outsold Camaro 4 to 1 in 2002.
Challeneger is being outsold almost 8 to 1 by Camaro.

Now.....THAT'S having your *** kicked.


No, it's not surprising.

What? the all new Camaro was going to step in to the marketplace and not take a single Mustang sale?

Camaro has no doubt done what it was meant to do, and that was to pull in new buyers who might have purchased a sedan or an SUV, but the coupe market is 2 things:

1. Style driven (driven by the newest fashion). and...
2. Finite in size. The coupe market can only expand so much before it hits a limit. Which is great, because all 3 car makers' studies showed that the coupe market was incapable of growth at all.

Camaro is taking some of Mustang's sales. A 23% drop should be expected when a year ago, Mustang had a monopoly (the regular Challenger V6 and R/T were just making it to showrooms, and Mustang was the only domestic game in town).

One last thing on the Dodge Challenger,

It's still relatively limited in production to a ratio of Charger and 300 production. There were plenty of people earlier this year who abandoned their orders because of insanely long waits, and the old Chrysler's refusal to ramp up production because they were attempting to force dealers to sell more of Chrysler's other models....ie: Avengers & Sebrings... in order to get a Challenger to sell.

FWIW: Many DID decide to get something else from another company.
Many of those that bought something else wound up with a new Camaro.

Chrysler shot themselves in the foot big time over the Challenger, which was selling at a rate of at least 3K per month just before Chrysler shut down for bankruptcy.

The new 1K monthly number for the Challenger in a month that was a bit of a bonanza for all car sales (not just clunker trade-ins) just shows how badly Chrysler screwed up.

Are you sure you didn't just make that up?

I have yet to find a single Challenger owner.... and I mean not a single one.... who regretted their purchase of the Dodge Challenger.

As for Mustang people I spoke to, they all love their cars, and have high praises about their purchase. As expected, many are Mustang fans or previous owners of Mustangs.

While all have said positive things about Camaro when the conversation inevitably winds up there, the common theme comes back to Camaro's interior.

I make a point to talk breifly with every new Mustang GT, Challenger, and Camaro owner I come across because I plan on selling my '02 B4C within the next year or so (it has just passed 198K miles!) and get one of those 3 coupes, and I'm pretty torn over all 3 of them. I want to get HONEST feedback from ACTUAL owners. All love their cars... none would rather have anything different... none had "Buyer's Remorse", and none mentioned the thought of waiting for Camaro...every single person was aware that a new Camaro was coming (afterall, it's been in the press for nearly 3 years, including CNN. ).

It's great to be enthusiastic about a new car, and I'm sure there may be 1 or 2 in a group of a hundered that might have wanted one of the other cars in hindsight. All 3 cars are fantastic, and all 3 cars have drawbacks. But when you start saying every owner of other brands feels remorse that isn't realistic. Especially when there are people out there who one can easily ask, and find out their actual answer.

Just keeping things real here.

 

Guy....I often disagree with your analysis of vehicle performance, but when it comes to stuff like this, you are typically right on the money, IMHO.

 

I just saw that gold on a mustang at my local dealer yesterday. It looked so different in that color i did a double take.

I'm interested to know how many genesis coupes hyundai isn't selling.

 

guionm, the camaro outsold the mustang by almost 40%. thats a huge number when you break it down to percentages. in a total, 2400 units may not seem like alot, but in this time now, it is.