The Ford Mustang beat the Chevrolet Camaro and the Dodge Challenger the 5th month in a row and the 27th time in the past 29 months, allowing the Motor Company to continue to lead the muscle car segment as it climbs out of the slow winter months.
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The Ford Mustang is on quite a roll, having outsold both of its key competitors in all but two of the months since the new generation hit dealerships back in November 2014. Since the 2015 Mustang began rolling off of dealer lots in late 2014, the Mustang has been the top dog in the muscle car class, beating the Chevrolet Camaro and the Dodge Challenger – often convincingly – in every month except for September and October of 2016.
Since then, the Mustang has beaten the Camaro each and every month by a significant margin and March 2017 was more of the same – with the Ford beating the Chevy by more than 2,000 units while the Dodge finished up nearly 3,000 units behind the class-leading Mustang.
Mustang Wins in March 2017
In March 2017, Ford Motor Company sold 9,120 examples of the mighty Mustang while General Motors sold just 7,052 examples of the Chevrolet Camaro and FCA sold only 6,225 examples of the Dodge Challenger. Mustang sales were down sharply from the 12,563 sold in March 2016, but with 9,120 units sold, that is more than enough to comfortably outsell each of the key competitors in the segment.
The good news for both Chevrolet and Dodge is that their muscle cars – while selling in lower numbers in March than the Mustang – each saw year-over-year sales growth while the Mustang dropped by better than 27%. The Camaro was up 2.5% and the Challenger was up 17%, so while neither of those cars sold enough units last month to beat the Mustang, at least they showed growth. After all, showing growth and losing is better than showing a decline and losing, right?
The bad news – or the worse news – for both Chevrolet and Dodge is that with its 3rd-straight monthly sales title in the three months of 2017, the Motor Company has already amassed a solid lead in the annual muscle car sales race. During the 1st quarter of 2017, Ford has sold 22,464 Mustang. Chevrolet has sold 15,296 Camaros in the 1st three months of 2017 and Dodge has sold 15,725 Challengers, so the Mustang leads each of its competitors by a margin of roughly 7,000 units.
Ford Mustang has claimed the annual muscle car sales race in each of the past two years and if Chevrolet wants to stop Ford from making it a three-peat – the Camaro is going to need to start selling a whole lot better very soon. At this point, it is looking like the race will once again be for second, with the Camaro and Challenger battling it out as the Mustang runs off into the sunset with another title. Of course, we still have 9 months left in 2017 and a great many things can change, but right now, Ford surely has another muscle car sales title in its sights.
GM vs Dodge Sales
In the meanwhile, General Motors might want to focus on selling enough Camaros to stay ahead of the Dodge Challenger. Right now, the Challenger leads the Camaro after the 1st quarter of the year for the first time in the recent era of the two cars. To put that more clearly, since the Camaro returned for the 2010 model year, Dodge has never sold more Challengers in the 1st quarter than Chevrolet sold Camaros – until now. This comes as a combination of the steady increase in Challenger sales and the steadily disappointing Camaro sales and if this keeps up, Chevrolet could stand a real chance of finishing 3rd in segment sales.
Again, there is plenty of time for the Camaro to rebound, but with sales being at their worst since the return of the Camaro back in late 2009, you have to wonder what GM will do to try to improve Camaro sales as soon as possible.
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