New York (CNN) General Motors announced Wednesday that it will end production of the latest generation Chevrolet Camaro, leaving the Ford Mustang as the last gasoline-powered American performance coupe.
Stellantis previously announced that it will stop making the larger Dodge Challenger at the end of this year. At the same time, Dodge executives revealed a electric muscle car concept car which, they say, gave a preview of a future model.
GM has not announced any future versions of the Camaro, although it has teased that there will be some future for the brand.
“While we are not announcing an immediate successor today, rest assured, this is not the end of Camaro’s story,” said Scott Bell, vice president, Global Chevrolet.
GM is in the process of transferring to a all-electric lineup of vehicles by 2035, as it invests billions in designing and developing future EV models, with 75% of capital spending now dedicated to EVs and autonomous vehicles. That has resulted in a sharp reluctance to invest in new versions of traditional internal combustion engined vehicles.
The current model is the sixth version of the Camaro in its history. It was built at the Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant in Michigan, which will cease construction in January, 2024.
The Camaro model was first introduced in 1966 as a competitor to Ford’s wildly successful Mustang, which appeared in 1964. After five generations of redesigned models, the Camaro was dropped from the lineup in 2002, but was brought back in 2010.
However, in recent years, its sales have not matched the more popular Challenger or Mustang. In 2022, GM reports US Camaro sales of about 25,000, slightly more than half of the nearly 48,000 Mustangs sold by Ford and less than half of the 55,000 Challengers sold by Dodge.
Ford released a new generation of Mustang at the Detroit Auto Show in September. The new Mustang, which goes on sale next summer, is purely gasoline powered, not electric or hybrid. This will mark the seventh generation and the 58th consecutive year of production for the Mustang.
These muscle cars or pony cars are also among the last model cars — as opposed to SUVs or trucks — produced by the three automakers.
— CNN’s Chris Isidore contributed to this report
