Quote:
Originally Posted by DGthe3
True it doesn't hurt them, but it doesn't help them much either. The Camaro is on track to out-sell the Challenger 4:1. On its own, the Camaro is doing a lot to help GM's bottom line, the Challenger isn't doing the same for Chrysler ... and they need all the help they can get.
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We keep repopulating information that is only partially correct here. It is clearly likely that Camaro would be outselling Challenger if Challenger had optimized production. However here are some facts:
In July of 2009 only 886 Challengers were produced, down from over 2600 in 7/08. The Brampton plant is seriously effected by a number of things including pending litigation with Mercedes. Challenger production is slowly coming back up but it is still significantly down from 2008. Challenger sales being 1/4th of Camaro simply isn't apples to apples. In September 2009, Dodge sold 1778 Challengers, which was up 57% from August (note that 57% fewer challengers is pretty much the production numbers for July). Although Dodge's total sales were down, Chargers and Challengers were up. There's more knowledgeable people than me on the subject
Interestingly, the Charger also has some plant interruptions, but it was considered a more key car to Chrysler (both made at Brampton): They sold 7507 in September compared to 7961 for Camaro.
So I'm trying to make 2 points: 1) is that comparing sales of Camaro vs Challenger wouldn't be nearly as illuminating as comparing the snuffed G8+Camaro vs Challenger+Charger. However they don't make the G8 anymore so Chevy has no contender with the Charger. 2) comparing Challenger vs Camaro won't be meaningful until Camaros have been out for a year and Challenger production isn't compromised. My understanding is that Dodge never wanted to make more than 36k Challengers a year because they considered the Charger to be the bread and butter of their full size car line.