GM halts production of Chevrolet Camaro after sluggish sales

The Chevrolet Camaro, the dream car of many teenage American men for decades, is ending production.

General Motors, which sells beefy muscle cars, said Wednesday stop making the current generation early next year.

The future of this car, which races on NASCAR and other circuits, is a bit uncertain.

GM says another generation may be in development.

Chevrolet vice president Scott Bell said in a statement Wednesday: “While we are not announcing an immediate successor today, rest assured that this is not the end of the Camaro story.

The current sixth-generation Camaro, introduced in 2016, has performed well on the racetrack, but sales have been declining in recent years.

When the current-generation Camaro debuted in 2016, Chevrolet sold 72,705 units.

But by the end of 2021, that number had fallen by nearly 70% to 21,893.

Last year it recovered slightly to 24,652.

GM said the final 2024 model is expected to leave its assembly line in Lansing, Michigan, in January.

Spokesman Trevor Tompkins said nothing more could be said about future Camaros.

“I’m not saying anything specific right now,” he said.

The company has an understanding with the auto racing sanctioning body that sixth generation cars can continue to race, he said.

GM will make the parts available and the Camaro body will stay on the racetrack, he said.

NASCAR said the Generation 6 Camaro was in production when GM first obtained a permit to race, so it was eligible to race in the NASCAR Cup and NASCAR Xfinity Series.

GM will offer collector’s edition packages of the 2024 Camaro RS and SS in North America, as well as a limited number of high-performance ZL-1 Camaros.

The collector’s edition car is tied to the original Camaro from the 1960s and its GM codename “Panther,” the company said, without elaborating.