Two Failed Coupes . . . and Counting

It’s interesting to take note of the failure of two of the three original pony cars – Camaro and Challenger, which were both recently cancelled a second time. Each had been resurrected after a prior cancellation. In the case of the Challenger, the hiatus was longer. Dodge dropped it after the 1974 model year; it made a comeback in 2008 – and got retired (again) in 2024.

Camaro almost got cancelled a first time, too – back around 1974, too. But GM kept the car going until 2002, when it, too, got dropped. Then it came back eight years later – in 2010 – and lasted until 2024, when it got cancelled a second time.

Only the Mustang has managed to not get cancelled – so far – though it has come close to being canceller (or replaced) at least twice. Once around the same time as the first time the Challenger got cancelled, back in ’74 – and once again in the ’80s, when Ford flirted with replacing it (with a Mazda-based “Mustang” called the Probe).

The interesting thing is that all of these cars – especially Camaro and Mustang – were for many years extremely popular cars that sold extremely well – to the tune of more than 100,000 annually. But then they stopped selling well, even though – in the case of the early-mid 1970s Challenger and Camaro – they were still pretty much the same cars that they had been when sales were good.

Well, visually.

The 1974 Challenger looked pretty much the same as the ’73 and earlier Challenger. But by ’74, the big V8s (like the 383 and 440) that had previously been available no longer were. The biggest, strongest engine available by ’74 was a 360 that touted 245 horsepower. This was respectable power – for 1974 – but it was much less power (and much less engine) than had been available before. The same watering down happened to the Camaro. By 1974, the Z28’s 350 cubic inch V8 had been tamed down to the same 245 horsepower you got in a Challenger. It wasn’t weak. But it wasn’t nearly as strong as the 360 horsepower iteration of the 5.7 liter V8 that came in the 1970 Z28. That one had a hot solid lifter cam and a Holley four barrel. The ’74 had a milder hydraulic cam and a Quadrajet.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

These attenuations were concessions to the ever-tightening noose of federal emissions regs, which were in the process of strangling the performance out of performance cars. It was anticipation of further tightening that did kill off the Challenger and the Z28 version of the Camaro, which was dropped after 1974.

Probably because 1975 was the first year for catalytic converters and single exhaust (because the early cats were huge and hugely expensive, V8s exhaled through a corked-up single exhaust with one cat). The 1975 Camaro was still available with a 350 V8. But horsepower was down to 170 – and GM decided that a 170 horsepower Z28 would be an embarrassment. So no more Z28. Worse happened to the Challenger, which was entirely gone for 1975.

Interestingly, the Camaro Z28’s sibling – the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am – survived. Probably because Pontiac’s still-big 400 and 455 V8s were still available. Though gelded, they were still credible. The ’75 455 still managed 200 horsepower, even though it also had to exhale through a corked-up, single cat exhaust.

It was also around this time that Ford brought out the Mustang II – which was much smaller, much lighter and much less powerful than the ’73 Mustang. A lot of people laughed – at the time. But the Mustang II was the right car for that time. Ford sold a lot of them, at a time when Dodge wasn’t selling many Challengers and Camaro sales were sickly.

The Camaro did snap back – and by 1978, Chevy was selling more than a quarter million annually. The car continued to sell well into the ’90s – but it began to not sell as well after Chevy replaced the 1982-1992 bodystyle with controversial bodystyle in ’93 that many people didn’t like – despite the fact that these ’93-2002 Camaros were more powerful than the previous Camaros. By 2002, they were selling so poorly that GM pulled the plug. Only to plug it back in for 2010, with a restyled body that was meant to visually recall the original Camaros made from 1967-1969.

It just got cancelled – again. Well, it did – back in 2024. The rebooted challenger also got cancelled that same year. What did these two cancellations have in common?

It certainly wasn’t low-performance as both of these cars performed better than any of their ancestors. The highest-performing version of each had more than 700 horsepower – which in comparison makes even the ’70 Z28 (and the ’70 Challenger) seem almost effeminate, insofar as the power they had.

Almost everyone who likes these kinds of cars agrees the last Challenger was a great-looking car – and the last Camaro was better-looking than the Camaro that got cancelled  back in ’02.  The last Challenger was also a pretty practical car, for the kind of car that it was. It had usable back seats – and a big trunk. The Camaro had neither – but it never did, so that can’t be why it failed this time.

These two failed for one simple reason. Not enough people bought them to make it worth trying to sell them. Why didn’t enough people buy them? Another simple reason: They were both too pricey for the majority of people – mostly young men – who (being young) aren’t generally flush. It has always been thus. But it wasn’t a problem back in the heyday of the pony car because young men didn’t need to be flush to buy a pony car – or a muscle car.

It is a forgotten fact that when the pony cars first appeared – Mustang first, Camaro and Challenger after – along with the muscle cars that appeared around the same time (beginning with the 1964 GTO) the target audience was young guys in their 20s. Believe it or not – as Jack Palance used to say – it was common for guys just out of high school to buy a new Camaro or Challenger or Mustang. Because in those days, desirable cars were affordable cars. The dollar was much stronger, in terms of what it would buy – and so people needed to earn fewer to be able to buy more, then vs. now.

Until that changes, cars such as these will remain a very tough sale – except to a relative handful of older guys  – and that includes the current Mustang, which Ford hasn’t cancelled yet only because the continued existence of the car has a “halo effect” for Ford. People see them in the showrooms and admire them – but they drive away in an Escape, because it’s all they can afford. Because they can only afford to buy one.

Guess which one?

It’d be nice if – some day – young guys could afford to buy a new Mustang or something like that, again. Just for the fun of it.

. . .

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