Ford Mustang Dominates US Mainstream Sports Car Market Through Q3 2024

Back in December 2023, both General Motors and Stellantis pulled the plug on the Alpha-platform Camaro and L-platform Challenger. Be that as it may, said models posted 444 and 3,657 sales in the third quarter. More surprisingly, the Challenger is listed with 24,874 deliveries year-to-date.

Although the Corvette is hardly mainstream from the standpoint of base MSRP, it's worth mentioning that GM's flagship sports car moved 7,797 and 25,711 vehicles, respectively. Similar to Stellantis and the Ford Motor Company, the Detroit-based manufacturer did not break down Corvette sales data into Stingray, E-Ray, and Z06.

Over at Mazda, the world's most popular two-seat sports car couldn't do better than 545 and 5,780 examples, respectively. That's 5,780 deliveries in nine months, which is 23.6 percent worse than in the first three quarters of 2023. Fellow Japanese automaker Subaru had a bit of trouble selling the BRZ as well, with the boxer-engined coupe racking up a very disappointing 2,323 sales year-to-date.

Toyota, on the other hand, reported 9,643 sales or 10.4 percent more deliveries than the 8,737 recorded in the first nine months of 2023. Speaking of Toyota, the Z4-twinned GR Supra is pretty close in year-to-date volume to the BRZ at 2,329 deliveries.

BMW of North America reported 1,471 deliveries of the Z4 through Q3 2024, up 1.2 percent from last year. It turns out that introducing a manual transmission for 2025 didn't make too much of a difference, which is barely surprising once you configure a manual Z4 for yourself. Believe it or not, BMW had the audacity of charging $54,050 for the auto-only, four-pot sDrive30i. Stepping up to the six-cylinder M40i means $66,450 sans destination charge, whereas the Edition Handschalter Package adds $3,500 to the final price.

Insane money for a not-so-excellent sports car, let alone one that's not as dynamically capable as the mechanically similar GR Supra. Our final entry is the Nissan brand's twin-turbocharged Z, which – similar to the GR Supra – comes as a coupe exclusively.

Essentially a 370Z with more retro styling, a nicer interior, a punchier engine, and a nine-speed auto produced under license from Mercedes-Benz AG, the Z sold 2,175 units in the past nine months. Disappointing is most likely the word you might be looking for.

As of this writing, seven of the aforementioned mainstream sports car are available with manuals. The most affordable of the bunch is the 2024 Mazda MX-5 Miata at $28,985 for the soft top in Sport flavor.