1969 to 1970 Camaro Question

[Pro Stock John]

The Mustang had a sales dip in 1970 even though the '69 and '70 models were pretty similar.

[Rfish]

Firebird suffered the same. Combine Camaro & Firebird and sales weren’t bad considering. While ‘70 suffered from short production year there were allot of other factors. Radical design, 1st model year, higher price, fuel and insurance costs, cost of living and soon to come emission changes allot of suffering was inevitable. Allot of people already spent their money on the popular ‘69 models during the longer production run so may not have been willing to jump to new purchase.. Another issue was popularity of other models. Cutlass was one of the most popular models and it numbers did not see the same declines start of ‘70’s.
Year Total Firebird Production
1967 82,560
1968 107,112
1969 87,011
1970 66,576
1971 52,124
1972 29,951
1973 46,313
1974 73,729
1975 84,063
1976 96,778
1977 117,626
1978 187,285
1979 211,454
1980 107,340
1981 71,899
1982 116,366
1983 74,884
1984 128,304

Year Number of Cutlass' Produced
1961 76,394
1962 93,968
1963 118,811
1964 167,002
1965 180,097
1966 202,967
1967 226,406
1968 300,284
1969 204,865
1970 275,179
1971 234,208
1972 302,669
1973 381,094
1974 315,499
1975 323,842
1976 495,344
1977 633,910
1978 613,340
1979 631,027
1980 591,984
1981 597,525
1982 382,204
1983 335,357
1984 429,651
1985 292,633
1986 305,566
1987 192,433
1988 30,267

[Pro Stock John]

Dang the Cutlass had strong sales numbers.

[Ralph Spears]

1970 Corvette production started in January 1970 due to the strike and Camaro started production in January 70 also so 1970 was a short production year for Camaro & Corvette production for 1969 Corvette was 38,762 units 1970 Corvette was 17,316

[markinnaples]

Thanks everyone. Also, a question I've pondered as stated above is why they didn't push the 1969 model into 1970 after the sales figures were so strong in 1969 and the general popularity of that year. Another year of the 1969 body with minor changes could have been another great sales year (I wish they would have done that just to increase the number of that body style existing today).

[Too Many Projects]

Originally Posted by markinnaples

Thanks everyone. Also, a question I've pondered as stated above is why they didn't push the 1969 model into 1970 after the sales figures were so strong in 1969 and the general popularity of that year. Another year of the 1969 body with minor changes could have been another great sales year (I wish they would have done that just to increase the number of that body style existing today).

From what I read after and since, the '69 production was intended to end in July/August, as usual, but Fischer was having trouble getting the dies for the quarter panels to come out right. They kept trying to modify them into the time period where they couldn't start production on time and just kept the '69 body going. Fischer, eventually gave up on the faulty dies and started all over and that ran into the strike time, so the '70 model didn't come out until after that. This wasn't a planned mid-year introduction and to refer to the '70 as a 70.5 isn't accurate from that standpoint. Yes, it was only produced for half a year, but GM didn't intend that to happen. And yes, the 2nd gen body was a love it or hate it and there wasn't much neutral ground between them around where I grew up and lived.
As for poor sales numbers after that, remember the mandates for emissions taking effect in '71 and low hp numbers and then in '73, this country was in a serious fuel shortage as well as rising prices of both fuel and cars having an effect on new car sales.

[BCreekDave]

Originally Posted by Pro Stock John

Yeah this is a great question.

I found this for production numbers:

1967 220,906
1968 235,147
1969 243,085
1970: 124,901
1971: 114,630
1972: 68,651
1973: 96,751
1974: 151,008
1975: 145,770
1976: 182,959
1977: 218,853
1978: 272,631
1979: 282,582
1980: 152,005
1981: 126,138

Makes me think the 2nd gen restyle was not well received. Also I wonder why GM didn't make the '69 style 1-2 more years?

Not exactly.

The 69 was in production for about 15 months due to the 70's late intro due to quarter panel forming problems (not a strike)
243,085/15 = 16206 per month

The 70 was in production for 7 months (January thru July) =17,843 per month. So, on per month basis, the 70 outsold the 69's!

71's did drop due to a strike and due to the general, industry wide fall in performance car sales. This was continued into 72 with an even longer strike and perceived performance dropping due to emissions and insurance skyrocketing on performance cars.

https://www.camaros.org/geninfo.shtml#extended69

[Pro Stock John]

Thanks for the clarifications Mitch and Dave, I didn't know the '69s were built that long. Also didn't know there was more than one strike.