hey just going through production numbers etc with my 91 firebird convertible and compared it to the camaro convertibles. Just wondering why the big difference with the pontiac and chevys. especially 91 and 92. its thousands difference in the base v8 ones.

 

Start at cost...

1) Then consider that there was about half as many Firebirds made than Camaros because of Cost.
2) Then consider that the marketing may not have been as strong for the Firebirds,
3) Then consider the economy (which circles back to cost)... What was interesting is I glanced at production numbers for several years back in the 80's, and when the economy was doing better, more expensive cars trended to do better, and when the economy went down less expensive trended better, although the Firebird never outpaced the Camaro in its 35 year side by side run, but comparatively it was interesting. I will be honest, it was not a scientific thing, I did not crunch numbers, but it did seem to be the case.

 

Add in that there were more Chevrolet Dealerships than Pontiac Dealerships.

 

I do not have a way to check, but do you know how many pontiac dealerships there was in 1991 & 1992? I would imagine that twice as many Chevrolet, but I do not know...

 

Yeah this is it in a nut shell. Over all i see about 10 times more camaros than birds

 

By the numbers there was 1,000,000 Camaros and 500,000 Firebids from 82-92

 

From 1987-1990 the desparity between Camaro and Firebird convertibles was really high because Firebird count was zero.

Firebird convertible could retrofitted with GM's blessing, but you had to know which fiery hoops to jump through in order to get one.

 

Very True, and of those made from 1987-1989, the total quantity (around 600 total over 3 years) was less than the lowest production for 1987 for the Camaro in one year.

Actually the fire hoops were not bad, once you figured it out, Order a car with T-tops and no rear defrost, then have it scheduled with ASC. Then you had to have the car drop shipped to ASC. The process was the same for the camaro in 1986 and partly into 1987, but with the RPO introduction in 1987, the process became much more simple.

I am not sure why Simo did not post it here, but in 2001, there was around 4,300 Chevrolet Dealerships compared to 2800 Pontiac Dealerships. From 1982-1992 there was 1,517,623 Camaros and 817,444,

Doing a simple math for every Pontiac dealership in 2001 there was 1.53 Chevrolet Dealerships. And From 1982-1992, for every Firebird made there was 1.86 Camaros made so almost 2 to 1.

For more fun with math, here is the ratio of Camaros over Firebirds
82 - 1.54
83 - 2.06
84 - 2.04
85 - 1.88
86 - 1.74
87 - 1.55
88 - 1.54
89 - 1.72
90 - 1.70
91 - 3.33
92 - 2.78

%GDP Growth in the US
82 : -2.0
83 : 4.5
84 : 7.2
85 : 4.1
86 : 3.4
87 : 3.2
88 : 4.1
89 : 3.6
90 : 1.9
91 : -0.3
92 : 3.4