Long a muscle car beloved in the UAE, sales of the Ford Mustang fell by 32 per cent in the United States last month, forcing the company to shut its Mustang factory in Michigan.
And in what will be a painful reality for fans of the car first made famous as Steve McQueen's steed of choice in the 1968 classic film Bullitt, the Mustang was outsold by the Chevrolet Camaro for the first time in almost two years.
The second-largest US car maker has idled the factory in Flat Rock, south of Detroit, to match production capacity with demand, said Kelli Felker, a company spokeswoman. The plant, which employs 3,702 workers and makes Mustangs and Lincoln Continentals, will resume production on October 17, Ms Felker said.
The closure may be a sign of the growing weakness of the US car market, which had been a leading driver of economic growth. Car makers’ monthly sales have been coming up short – although they beat expectations in September – and many analysts are now predicting the US car industry will not match last year’s record of 17.5 million cars and light trucks.
Mustang received a racy redesign two years ago on the car’s 50th anniversary. That new look helped to propel the Mustang past the Camaro in 2015 to regain its title as the top-selling sportscar in America, which it had held for decades before General Motors redesigned the Camaro in 2010.
Camaro overtook Mustang last month for the first time since October 2014 on the strength of incentives that more than tripled last month to US$3,409 per car, compared with an average discount of $2,602 on the Mustang, according to data from researcher JD Power obtained by Bloomberg.
“In terms of incentives, we’re always going to be disciplined, but we’ll be competitive as well,” said Erich Merkle, Ford’s sales analyst.
Ford has sold 87,258 Mustangs in the US this year, down 9.3 per cent, while GM had Camaro sales of 54,535, off 11 per cent, according to the researcher Autodata. The Ford chief executive Mark Fields has said the US car market has plateaued and that showroom sales are weakening.
With a slowing market for cars, Camaro’s inventory rose to a 139-day supply at the end of August, said Jim Cain, a GM spokesman. The incentives, coming at the end of the 2016 model year, helped to lower Camaro supply to 120 days, still twice what is considered an optimum inventory. Mustang supply rose to 89 days at the end of September from 71 days a month earlier.
The deals on the Camaro will cool off this month as GM rolls out the 2017 model, Mr Cain said.
“We’ve been able to achieve some pretty significant increases in retail market share and transaction prices while keeping our incentives pretty disciplined for the calendar year,” he said.
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