I was in a conversation with a member of the Camaro team and he told me that there were 1900+ GM dealers who didn't sell a single Camaro. Sadly GM could take no action against the because of franchise laws. I told you my suspicions were right about the Camaro being the last coupe a GM dealer would sell someone. i wonder how many Ford dealers didn't sell Mustangs?

 

I believe this stat for sure.

It's ridiculous that dealers are not forced to stock an assortment of Camaros / Firebirds.

I remember when Aztek feel flat on it's face out of the gate, that there was an article stating that Pontiac foced a certain allocation of Aztek's on the Pontiac dealers, and actually mandated that they be displayed prominantly in from of the dealership when they could be seen my passing traffic, etc.

I assume this to be true, because all 3 of our local Pontiac dealers had a bunch of Aztek's after reading the artcile... and they all had 3 or more Azteks right out front.

If they can do all that for Aztek, they should have been able to do some of that for F-Body!

 

If what you say Darth is true, then this whole ending of the F-body production is becoming more and more like the JFK assassination. Seriously, they (GM) wanted this car (F-Body) dead. Just as they (CIA) wanted this car (Kennedy) assassinated. All the while, Lee Harvey Oswald (Aztek) is promoted to the public.

Jeff

 

What is even more insane is the dealers that had no clue what the SS and z28 were. They knew nothing about the Camaro. That could be why dealers didn't sell any or didn't sell that many.

 

Ok that stat just flat out pi$$es me off!!! No wonder a lot of people in the general public didn't know they were still building F-bodies. This just confirms the fact that sales weren't the reason behind this at all...even GM can figure out that you aren't going to sell many cars if dealerships don't have them!

 

Interesting and somewhat related...

Back in April when I bought my wife a 2002 Tahoe, the only Camaro my dealer had in stock was a used convertible. I asked him for a 2002 Camaro brochure and they didn't have any.

This dealer is supposed be one of the high volume Corvette sellers in Northern California. (At least that's what they claim.) I guess there's just no love for the ugly step-sister.

 

It would be interesting to find out how much a dealer makes off of Corvette vs Camaro. I don't have a chart in front of me, but I remember that Corvette was outselling Camaros at least the last few months.

 

I almost forgot. While they didn't have any 2002 Camaros, they did have a 2002 Monte SS.

 

Wow, that's hard to believe! How many Chevy dealerships are there? When I worked at a Chevy lot, we had several Camaros in stock. They were slow sellers though. At the end of the model year, we always had several Camaros when all the other models were either sold out or we only had 1 or 2 left. Not many people asked for them really. A few young kids would come in to gawk, but not much else. We once had a nice black Z28 convertable with chrome wheels and nice leather seats. It sat on the showroom for ever! Finally the battery went down, so we were always having to charge it. We finally dealer traded it, probably for a truck or a Cavalier. I'm just ready for the 5th gen!!

 

Perhaps dealers stock only what they know they can easily sell.

 

All dealers would have been allocated at least one at a time, but then the dealer can transfer it to another dealer in exchange for a quicker selling vehicle. The dealer I work for now sold loads of Firebirds. A Chevy dealer I worked for in a smaller town sold one new Z28 and a handful of V6 cars in the year I was there. If you go through small towns and see the dealers you will understand how this stat is possible. The F- body died because GM would not improve it ( other than rising hp ) or advertise it. If GM does not help generate demand for a product, it is natural that dealers will not move many units. GM wanted out of St. Therese. GM seems to be hellbent on selling ugly FWD cars to boring people. This attitude should change now that Bob Lutz is at the helm. Don't blame the dealers. If you want a Camaro, they are not going to try to convince you that a Monte Carlo is the ticket.

 

When I was selling at a Pontiac lot, we sold a WS6 almost every week (we were the only dealership around to order primarily M6 cars ). However, it was near impossible to move a V6 Firebird as many of them didnt have power windows/locks. So maybe it has to do with ordering/stocking what people want. Actually I'm sure it does.

 

When I worked there, they had just come up with some kinda new ordering system (can't remember the name of it now) that is supposed to allocate according to what you sold. They kinda 'forced' you to take certain cars. You had the option of going in and changing options, but only certain ones. When the allocated, you got certain models. As I remember, V6 and V8 Camaros actually had different model numbers. We were always allocated more V6's. It's been awhile (April 2000) but that's what I remember.

 

thats cause ws6es look so fawking badass...i do notice that i see more ws6es around houston than i do camaros..the only maros i see are v6s ones and usually lt1s.

 

According to the exec that told me GM does rate dealer performance on overall sales, however they couldn't go after them because they would sell so many more other cars. I mean put your self in team Camaro's shoes..How do you penalize a dealer for not selling a Camaro..that is already a slow seller..when they sell 400 Tahoes or a crap load of other cars. I doubt there was one Ford dealer who didn't sell a Mustang. Like i said earlier though teh F-body had competion with in GM on dealers lots, the Mustang didn't.