I'm getting the feeling that although there will be ripoffs and scalping when the new Camaro comes out, GM will be doing all it can do to keep that from happening.

When GTO came out, most GTOs went to the Pontiac dealers that sold the most cars. Unfortunately, out side the rust belt, Pontiac dealers aren't anywhere near the top of anyone's list, so a diosproportionate number of the few that were imported early on ended up at dealers that were often snowed in, while the rest of the country where the GTO would have sold faced serious shortages. Also, when the GTO came out, Pontiac dealers weren't really used to selling a hot car. Even the Solstice which has been out for 2 years still sees substantial dealer markups.

When Ford came out with the new Mustang, they misjudged the ratio between V6 and V8s and for a few months there was a shortage of the latter, also resulting in markups, although they came down quickly. Ford also traditionally has a better handle on dealer markups than GM tends to.

Chrysler is fully planning the new Challenger to energize their dealer network. The new Challenger is going to first be produced in SRT trim, basically making the car a "GT500" for Dodge dealers. Expect dealers to price them at whatever the market will bear. Things will calm down significantly by the time the "regular" Challengers (the V6 SXT and the R/T) come on line later in the year.


GM plans to start production of Camaro the last few months of 2008. Without going into detail, when they start showing up in dealers in (currently expected in February 2009), there will be quite a few months worth of production behind it, and any initial shortage early on should be short lived (assuming, unlike Ford, GM guesses the demand ratio right).

Those of you using the Mustang GT500 as an example of what can happen to the Camaro (you know who you are) you're pretty far off base. The GT500 is MEANT to be sold at high profits for the dealer network. Ditto the Shelby GT. These are specialty cars. Regular Mustangs are sold at regular prices. The same will hold true for regular Camaros.

The exception will be this "Super Camaro". Whatever engine and drivetrain it does or doesn't have, it's going to be a relatively low production, high intrest car. As such, it's going to be priced that way. If you expect it to MSRP for much less than a GT500 (around $40K) you're likely to be in for a very rude awakening. As for the GT500's markup, that is something you need to discuss with your local Chevrolet dealer. If he or she is only going to get 1 or 2 in the entire year and 3 or 4 if their extremely lucky, unless your intimate relationship with your dealer streches the boundaries of morality, you're going to be paying a substantial markup just like everyone else buying rare low production cars (including GT500 buyers).

Crystal ball prediction based on what I see, if you are depositing nonrefundable money to get one of the 1st Camaros, you might qualify for mental disability benifits. If you are making deposits to guarantee MSRP, you might be a bit smarter, but it still is a bit unnecessary.

Camaro is likely to be in dealers as quick as they can be shipped. As with any new high demand car, there's going to be shortages especially for the V8 version and there's going to be markups (even 2002 WS6 Firebirds had markups in Southern California). But because there's more Chevrolet dealers in the US than any other name, the fact that GM learned a painful lesson about allocations with the early GTO debacle, and that GM is going to produce the Camaro for a time before it begins shipping should mean that scalping for Camaro should be no worse than it was for Mustang (which was kept shockingly in check considering the intrest)....

.... and light years better than Pontiac dealers seem capable of doing.

 

Will be interesting to watch.

/me saves this post.....a year and a half is still a long time.

 

I guess the whole february release is a good and bad thing for me. Bad in that, I live in the snow belt, and I wont drive it in the winter, so grr...

what the means to me is that I probably wont want to buy one until spring, so that I can drive it when I first get it instead of parking it in a garage and making a huge payment for 2-3 months.

 

lol I am going to shake my pillows at the sales man to get him to take the price down on the camaro. lol

 

I still find it funny that the loony markups the some dealers were asking for hasn't gotten the blame it truly deserves as a factor in slowing GTO sales.

 

guionM -- The GTO distribution strategy probably looked ok on paper at least.

GM wanted to avoid spending much on advertising , so they were hoping that it would sell via word-of-mouth to Pontiac fans, GTO fans, and general Detroit Muscle fans. Putting the car in the places that bought Trans Ams seemed logical.

Except the GTO people shat on the car, and so did the Firebird people to some extent. It took a while for the larger market to even hear about the car and start buying it.

The difference with the Camaro is that the traditional GM/Chevy/Camaro fan groups seem incredibly psyched for this car. While I'm sure the Camaro will sell well on the coasts, it will probably do even better in the midwest and the south and other places where american cars traditional sell well. If they put too many in California, there might be shortages in Detroit!

Well around here at least the GTO was 99% perfect and any sales issues were because of the dealers.

 

I've always heard that by ordering your car, you can avoid dealer markups. Granted you won't get anything off the MSRP, but that's OK in this case. Is this not true for the GT500 or the future "super" camaro?

 

I refuse to pay any mark up on the new camaro. If a sales person tries to pull thay crap, I'm walking. MSRP is the max I'm paying. There are too many Chevy dealers around to have to deal w/ that.

 

You heard wrong on both accounts.

No guarantee that ordering will avoid mark-ups. Dealers can tack a "desirability fee" (or whatever they decide to call it) onto the price of an ordered car just as easily as one on the lot.

You CAN order a car below MSRP......I've done it and so have plenty of other people.

The beauty of ordering a car is that you can get it exactly as you want it, and in my opinion, it's a GREAT bargaining tool.

Much easier to walk up to, or call, or e-mail a dealer with a list of option codes already built up for "your" car AND know what the invoice price is. Come right out, and say :I'd like to order THIS car. How close can you come to invoice?" It's simple, quick and you cut through all the B.S. Last car I ordered was like this. In less than 5 minutes after approaching the salesman we were already filling out the paperwork to order my wife's Sunfire for $100-$200 (I forget) over invoice.

I'm not saying you'll be able to get a 5th Gen the first year out below MSRP, but who knows? What I AM SAYING is that if you don't mind doing some research, shopping around, and possibly going out of town, it shouldn't be too hard to get a 5th Gen in the first year for NO MORE than MSRP.

As far as if and/or how much the "bad-***" might be marked up.....I think it probably will depend on how many/few of the cars they produce. As long as they make enough of them, dealer mark-up shouldn't be too much of an issue.....hell, believe it or not, you can get new Z06's for below MSRP now. IF, however, they decide to make very limited run of the "bad-***" Camaro....look out !! Anybody else here old enough to remember the 1987 Buick GNX?

 

I may have missed it in this thread -- but one thing different between Camaro/Mustang - and GTO/SSR/Cobra -- and that is VOLUME.

There were only 18,000 GTOS max available a year -- SSR was very limited - and thus, when something's 'limited' -- the price goes up.

Don't believe me?
Go to ebaymotors -- people will do anything to make something look 'rare' -- and some of it is hysterical -- such as the "Rare 2-door Impala Custom Coupe with concave rear window" -- WHAT????? We built a gajillion of 'em ....but some people still think "wow...a rare car" --

 

It'll be interesting to see, b/c the Mustang didn't suffer a 7 year hiatus.

Which I believe, combined with how it looks, will give it a temorary status of a GT500 etc, until volume picks up anyways...

 

As much as I hope that I am wrong, I think dealers will gouge the hell out of people for the new Camaro.

 

Only the fools who will buy from them.

 

So wait, you're saying that the top dawg Camaro while be more than 40K because of limited productions and dealer mark ups?!

I was really hoping to get a top dawg for around 40K before taxes and fees. I don't really want a "regular" V8, but I am not going to pay dealer mark ups!

 

I don't think anybody is saying that WILL be the case. Just a lot of discussion about worst case scenarios because not a lot of people (me included) have much faith in car dealerships. There's really no way to tell until Chevy actually says how many they will produce, what the MSRP will be, and then see what mark-up (if any) dealers will put on them.