martinjlm
Retired from GM
Just for the record, I do not consider sales to rental fleets to be "shameful". I will say that being on the "business" side of the car business, most (but not all) fleet sales are done at significantly lower margins than private owner sales. Some of that is because of lower option content (government and military vehicle sales) and some of it is due to volume (rental sales). The primary reason the rental car sales issue comes up is that a large part of Mustang's overall sales leadership over Camaro is due to the fact that Chevrolet has intentionally reduced sales of Camaro to rental fleets. As a result, most of Camaro sales are higher content, higher transaction priced sales. This is a specific strategy of not just Camaro, but General Motors in general.What is interesting is the continual shaming for Mustangs being sold to rental car/fleet companies.
Not sure why this is a negative as it clearly shows the rental car companies know what their customers want.
I am not in the know to know if they are sold for less than what dealerships get them for (doubt it), but Ford still makes a ton of profit from this which is great for all Ford customers.
I guess some may say it dilutes the brand making more on the road, but anyone thinking a vehicle in this price class is unique is kidding themselves.
So, when you look at total sales of Mustang and Camaro, if you exclude fleet sales for both of them, the sales to private owners (you, me, and most of the regulars of Mustang 6G and Camaro6) are pretty darn close. Camaro posters probably overplay this. Mustang posters tend to underplay this. To the person considering buying either car it is of little or no consequence.
Rental is not by and of itself a bad thing. It can, however, reduce resale value and then, by formula, residual rates for lease transactions due to high volume of late model high mileage used cars entering the marketplace. That is GM's primary reasoning for limiting sales of most vehicles to rental fleets. Attempting to maintain higher residual rates in order to offer better lease deals.
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