- Newly-released figures show the winners and losers in the sports car market during 2024.
- A few models, including the Toyota GR86, Nissan Z and BMW Z4, found more buyers than in ’23.
- Many models performed worse and some were axed, causing the segment to slump by 18.8 percent.
Americans bought more electric cars than ever before in 2024, but another segment is increasingly falling out of favor. Sports car sales slumped by almost 20 percent last year to 223,000 according to provisional numbers, but the misery wasn’t universal and some models even managed to find more buyers than in 2023.
Sales of the Toyota GR86 for example, increased by 3.1 percent to 11,426 units, putting it miles ahead of its Subaru BRZ sister, whose registrations dropped 20.1 percent to 3,345. So strong was the GR86’s showing that it outsold the BRZ, Nissan Z, BMW Z4 and Toyota’s own Supra combined.
Related: Corvette Crushes It, Sells Nearly Twice As Many As Supra, Z, GR86, MX-5 Combined In 2024
Supra sales dropped 1.4 percent to 2,615, but the Z enjoyed a surge in popularity. Its sales grew 78.7 percent to 3,164 outpacing its Toyota rival for the first time, while the addition of a manual transmission option helped BMW Z4 registrations almost double to 2,129. Other winners included the Lexus LC (up 5.8 percent to 1,854) and Porsche’s 911 and 718 Boxster and Cayman.
Porsche hasn’t released full-year data yet, but considering the 911 was up 25.2 percent to 10,841 during the first nine months of 2024, you can be sure the final figures will be really impressive. The 718s were up 8.3 percent to 3,821 in the same January to September period.
BMW’s 2-Series also appears to have performed strongly, although we can’t be sure how well the two-door coupe fared because BMW lumps its registrations in with those of the four-door model (as it does with the 4-Series). We reached out for a breakdown of the figures, but they declined to provide them.
The Axed and the Bruised
Plenty of automakers, however, won’t be drawing up plans to extend their sports car programs into the 2040s and beyond. Some had already taken the decision to axe their models before the 2024 model year started and you can no longer order a new Dodge Challenger, Chevrolet Camaro, Audi R8 and TT, or Infiniti Q60, though they all appear in the table below.
Cars that are still with us but took a bit of a beating last year include the Mazda MX-5 (down 9.7 percent to 8,103), Nissan GT-R (down 31.5 percent to just 267 units), Mercedes SL (down a scary 56 percent to 1,608), Chevrolet Corvette (down 3 percent to 33,330) and Ford Mustang (down 9.5 percent to 44,003).
The Mustang ought to have done better considering its Challenger and Camaro rivals were both only available for part of the model year, but it – and the Corvette – are still comfortably outperforming every other two-door on sale in America.