Mustang rebounds but falls short of Camaro in March 2011 sales

he numbers from around the industry are trickling in on this April Fool’s Day and GM has won the battle for March 2011, as the Chevrolet Camaro lead the Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger in monthly sales – marking the third straight month that the Bowtie bruiser has lead the segment in sales.

The Chevrolet Camaro saw less than a 1% improvement over March of 2010 but with 8,964, the Camaro was the top seller in the American muscle car war. While it wasn’t much of a year over year improvement, the Camaro showed growth of 44% compared to February 2011. As we get into the warm season in the northern states, we can expect to see the Camaro’s numbers benefit more from the offering of the new 2011 Camaro Convertible.

The Ford Mustang had a fantastic month in March 2011 with 8,557 units sold accounting for an improvement of 47% over March of last year and over 130% from just last month…trailing the Camaro by just 407 units. After a bad sales month for the Mustang where it was almost surpassed in sales by the Dodge Challenger, the Mustang rebounded quickly from the 3,697 unit performance in February. Now that the 2012 Mustang Boss 302 has begun reaching customers, we can expect to see those limited edition, high performance models sell out quickly – also helping the Mustang’s numbers to grow.

The Dodge Challenger continued to plug along with 3,989 units sold in March 2011. This accounted for an improvement of 24% over the same month last year as well as a 24% gain in sales compared to February 2011l; allowing the Challenger to show a gain of 38% in the first quarter of 2011 over the numbers from the same period in 2010.

It will be interesting to see how the numbers of these three Detroit muscle cars are impacted by the steadily rising fuel prices. So far, the performance bred trio continues to remain steady, thanks in part to fuel economy technology allowing these models to offer improved efficiency without sacrificing performance.

Other Muscle Car News:
The Camaro roughs up the Mustang and Challenger in February sales
The first 2012 Ford Mustang Boss 302 to run an 11 second quarter mile
Evolution Performance’s 2011 Mustang GT runs a 9 sec ¼ mile
The 2012 Ford Mustang configurator is now live
Camaro comfortably outsells Mustang, Challenger in January 2011