General Motors plans to discontinue the Chevrolet Camaro after 2023, according to a new report.
Things aren’t looking great for the Chevrolet Camaro. It’s now in third place in the Great Musclecar Wars having recently fallen behind the Dodge Challenger. The Ford Mustang remains the top car to beat, but sales for the Mustang have flattened out while the Challenger’s have risen over the past year.
The Chevy Camaro, sadly, has seen its sales drop 25% from 2017 to 2018, and it doesn’t look like 2019 will be any better.
And now we’ve got a new report from Muscle Cars & Trucks that says that GM is going to give up on the Camaro altogether. Sources within GM speaking to the publication say that the company has scrapped its plans for a 7th-generation Camaro and instead will shelve the nameplate after 2023.
The current 6th-gen Camaro rides on GM’s Alpha platform, which also underpinned the Cadillac ATS and CTS. Both the Caddies are to be replaced by the incoming CT4 and CT5 sedans riding on the A2XX platform, with the Camaro initially planned to follow suit. However, now it seems that GM will cede the battle to Dodge and Ford without much of a parting shot.
It should also be noted that the 2019 Camaro refresh was NOT well received by Chevy enthusiasts, especially the new front fascia of the SS trim. It was so poorly received that Chevy engineers actually performed an emergency facelift for the 2020 model year, showcasing it way before it plans to go on sale.
Another factor that might have lead to the Camaro’s demise could be the survey that GM sent out last year. One of the questions on it asked if Camaro owners would be amenable to a hybrid option (provided it had more power), and if the response was negative, that might have convinced GM execs to not even bother making a new one as it clashes with their goal of going electric.
On the plus side, 2023 is still some years away. There’s still time to change things around for the Camaro, but not unless Chevy gets a miracle.