Three big Detroit brands

For the time being, though, the new approach appears to be working. Sales of the Camaro and Challenger rose 13% and 10%, respectively, in June, outpacing growth in sales of all passenger wedding dresses cars, according to Autodata Corp. Mustang sales slipped 2%, but on average, customers paid more than $36,000 to buy one, up nearly 12% from a year earlier, according to data from AutoTrader.com.“The performance per dollar was hard to beat,” says Juan Barnett a 30-year-old Defense Department employee who drives a 412-horsepower, V8 Mustang GT around Washington, D.C., and maintains a blog for enthusiasts. Nostalgia for the late ’60s Mustangs had little to do with his purchase, he says, since the Mustang GT is a fast, sporty car that can still accommodate a child seat for the baby he and his wife are expecting. Car lovers of a certain age may like to reminisce about the glory days of American muscle, but buyers of today’s muscle cars are getting better vehicles by every measure, beyond just room for a baby wedding gowns seat.The 1967 Camaro Z28, for example, had a V-8 engine rated at 290 horsepower. That’s less than the V6 version of the 2011 Camaro, rated at 312 horsepower and 29 mpg on the highway. About half of Mustangs and two-thirds of Camaros are rolling onto the street with efficient, but strikingly powerful V6 engines, as consumers hedge against high gas prices. Today’s muscle cars also come with airbags, stability control and robust brakes, which were all lacking in the classics. Chevrolet marketing executive John Fitzpatrick says Camaro buyers cluster in two age bands—20 to 30 years old, and 45 to 55. “We definitely see more than a baby boomer audience,” he says.GM’s successful tie-in with the popular “Transformer” movie series is one element of the auto maker’s Wedding dress 2011 strategy for cultivating the next generation of enthusiasts. Chevy is launching a limited run “Bumblebee” Camaro, with a distinctive yellow paint job and bold black stripes, that looks like the Camaro that transforms into a fighting robot in the latest Transformers film. Angela Naff of Henry, Va., says she bought her first Camaro in 1995. Now she’s a collector and owns six of the new models, which she drives to gatherings at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina and other places where enthusiasts show off their cars and swap stories. “It’s just a passion,” says Ms. Naff, a personal-fitness trainer who runs a website for Camaro fans. She keeps an eye out for Camaros with unusual colors or option packages to add to her collection. “They had an orange with white stripes,” she says. “We jumped on that.”
As for Dodge, the Challenger ran behind the Mustang and Camaro in sales years ago, and it does again today, selling vintage wedding dress about 3,300 a month, or less than half the Camaro’s and Mustang’s sales in June. Those sales figures have prompted speculation in the auto-industry press that the car and its strongly retro styling statement won’t last.Chrysler says it has worked to upgrade the car’s performance, adding a new 305 horsepower V-6 engine that gets 27 mpg on the highway, up from 25 mpg for the previous V6.