Zac Quinn 
As MC&T exclusively reported back in 2019, General Motors plans on garaging the Chevrolet Camaro nameplate after 2023 (2024 model year), as plans for what was going to be the seventh-generation Camaro were halted. Adding further credence is what’s happening to the Camaro IMSA GT4 racing program. Racer recently interviewed GM’s sports car racing program manager Laura Klauser to discuss the status of the company’s motorsports campaigns, who confirmed that the Camaro program will end by the end of next year.
Klauser stated that the Chevrolet Camaro GT4 program would be “good through the end of ’23, and then our plan at this point is to not renew it.” While this was in direct reference to the racing-oriented version of the Camaro, IMSA homologation rules are such where the race car needs to be based on a vehicle that’s in production and for sale to retail customers. It’s still unclear how Chevrolet will continue forward in NASCAR.
While Klauser didn’t get into homologation specifics, she did tell the motorsports publication that the reasoning behind the plan to not renew the Camaro GT4 program after 2023 is so that they can put more attention on the 2024 C8 Corvette GT3 program. But the timeline matches exactly with where the Camaro nameplate is headed: to the garage.
Camaro sales, along with the rest of the muscle car segment, continues to evaporate as more and more performance trucks and SUVs like the Silverado ZR2 and Ford Bronco Raptor populate the market. According to the sales reporting for the year’s first quarter, the Chevrolet Camaro sales fell 5.3 percent over last year. That’s not as drastic as it was for the Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger. But that’s still not great when sales are already low. Chevy sold 6,710 Camaros in Q1 2022, which is less than the number of the more premium C8 Corvette sold for that same period.
The muscle car segment is starting to phase out, we knew the Camaro was approaching its final year, but until now, the exact date was unknown. Meanwhile, the Dodge Hellcats will also see their last year in 2023. The Ford Mustang will continue to carry the torch forward, as the S650 generation stands to be the last V8 muscle car standing.
