Chevrolet stopped building the Camaro in December 2023—nearly two years ago. While the production car is decidedly dead, the nameplate hasn’t disappeared from the company’s lineup, so long as you consider Chevy’s race cars to be a part of its lineup.
The Camaro name and styling have been used to shroud Chevy’s NASCAR stock cars since 2018, and despite the car no longer being in showrooms, it will continue to grace America’s circuits for 2026 in the NASCAR Cup Series – presumably because the company doesn’t have another front-engine performance car to take its place.
The updated car is proof that the Camaro still serves a necessary purpose. And it’s not like the design is languishing; designers and engineers put work into the road car’s design to ensure the race car and road car got updates—in a sense—for the 2026 model year. From the announcement:
The latest edition Camaro ZL1 racecar will feature upgraded styling that is aligned with Chevrolet’s recently released Camaro ZL1 Carbon Performance Package accessories kit for owners to optimize the performance capabilities of the sixth-generation Camaro ZL1 production car. Chevrolet collaborated with NASCAR and its teams on this update.
The most prominent racecar changes are a larger hood power dome, a revised front grille, and more pronounced rocker panels along the sides of the car. These mirror the new Carbon Performance Package’s carbon-fiber hood insert and rockers, plus ZL1 1LE-spec front grille and splitter.
While these changes can’t be ordered on a new car—again, because the 2026 Camaro doesn’t exist as a road car—you can actually get them on your ZL1. The above changes, as well as carbon fiber end caps for the splitter, carbon rocker extensions, and a carbon fiber rear wing, are available as a Performance Package you can order straight from Chevy’s 2026 Performance parts catalog. There’s also a set of optional bronze wheels that, admittedly, do look very good:
Weirdly, I think running NASCAR stock cars that look like Camaros isn’t too strange, at least in the world of NASCAR. At least the road cars had V8s, which you can’t say about Toyota’s NASCAR silhouette, the Supra (which is also going away early next year). The only manufacturer left that actually makes a two-door, rear-drive, V8 coupe to match its race car is Ford, with the Mustang.
Before the Camaro, Chevy was running stock cars that looked like its rear-drive, V8-powered SS sedan, which made a lot of sense. But before that, it ran cars that looked like the ninth-generation Impala, a front-wheel drive vehicle. So it’s been getting better over time.
Honestly, I was half-expecting them to switch to something that used the face of a Corvette for 2026, seeing as how that’s the only true performance car in Chevy’s lineup right now. But I guess using something designed for a mid-engine car on a front-engine race car would just be too weird. As sad as it is, Chevy still needs the Camaro. So it’ll stay alive in the best way it knows how: using a big loud V8 to go racing.
Top graphic image: Chevrolet
If NASCAR went back to literal stock cars you could buy off the showroom floor, it’d be a much more interesting event.
There aren’t enough manufacturers with RWD cars to compete, and I doubt the Germans and Italians would be interested. If they opened up the rulebook to allow any engine configuration, you basically get GT3 racing in a circle. I do agree it would be interesting though, especially seeing how the engineers design around the closely packed cars and turbulent airflow. Even if you change the cars, the philosophy of the racing is still the same, which would make for some really cool designs. Like, imagine what a Porsche 911 NASCAR (instead of a GT3) would look like?
This would work for NASCAR Craftsman Trucks. They could all be based on their truck counterpart since all of them are available 4×2…
Also a lot slower…
If you think this is sad (or unusual) then don’t look too closely at the British Touring Car Championship. One team is still using Vauxhall Astras of a generation that was replaced nearly four years ago. Up until just recently a pair of Infiniti Q50s soldiered on in BTCC for a few years after Infiniti had pulled out of the UK market entirely! So much for win on Sunday, sell on Monday.
But, TBF, this is because most of the teams are privateers without the budget to replace cars wholesale on an annual basis or such like, so if it still runs and it’s competitive enough, it stays on the grid.
More similar to this NASCAR would be that occasionally in Super GT’s top class, the silhouette of, say, the Honda NSX (which in its last years was a front-engine car with a mid-engine car’s face!) has remained in use when Honda doesn’t have any other sports-car shape to replace it. This happened for longer with the original-era NSX; the 2016-22 car only had to carry on for one extra year post-production in GT500. Honda tried running a Civic-R shape (2dr, RWD) in ’24 & 25, but it’s been uncompetitive – so now, just like magic, there’s a Prelude comeback with a very slippery-looking silhouette. Hmm.
Yet Toyota racing something that literally doesn’t exist… a 2 door Camry… is okay?
The decline of NASCAR in my lifetime has been really disappointing. I cannot exactly pinpoint why it declined; but in the circles I ran in growing up, NASCAR had the same level of popularity as NFL football. Today, however, I don’t know of anyone who consistently watches. I wasn’t a diehard fan, but It’s hard not to love stockcars. I mean look at that old Impala stockcar from the mid 2000s.
NASCAR added almost 10 races to their schedule. Somehow for me 28 races was harder to miss than 38. And once you start skipping races, they get easier to skip every week….
Nascar gave itself a self inflicted wound when they moved the middle portion of their schedule from broadcast tv to pay channels. Made it easy to forget all about it, and when the final end of season races reappeared on broadcast tv they are more an annoyance than anything else.
At this point, just put Equinox grille & headlight decals on the front and call it a day, its all pretend and doesnt really matter anyway
Race on Sunday, unable to sell on Monday.
Who wouldn’t want to see a Chevy Trax dominating Talledega?
Sorry…. but I couldn’t even type that with a straight face.
I would!
-Proud 2024 Trax LS owner. 🙂
Same, 25 Trax owner and it’s one of GMs best selling vehicles. I’d definitely be up for Nascar to switch to compact SUVs. Trax, vs Bronco Sport, vs Rav4 (or Corolla Cross) vs. well the list would be endless and every manufacturer could field a vehicle.
Or just drop the whole silly model naming thing anyway.
Just call em straight up Ford, Chevy and Toyota on the cars and call it good like we did in the 50’s.
…I Dunno, the massive “FABULOUS HUDSON HORNET” sign painting on the eponymous cars, or the use of door numbers starting with “300” on a particular group of Chryslers owned by an outboard motor magnate seem to be awful model-specific to me…
I was going to say the same thing. It is a spec car where only the engine changes.
That or make the Truck Series the top class as those are the vehicle they are actually selling in volume today.
They could even switch to the crew cabs that are the big sellers these days.
Given there is absolutely nothing at all stock about a NASCAR “stock car” today, this is speaking perfect sense. They have as much in common with their namesake models as I have with Tom Cruise.
Wanted to make a Tom Cruise joke here.
But will refrain out of respect I guess.
Why? If you don’t have something nice to say, come sit by me!
agreed, same with Toyota, at least make it seem like they might be homolgomating the nascar templates. if they don’t sell it with RWD and a V8 on Monday, then they cannot race it on Sunday in Nascar or any event that mistakenly calls the race cars stock cars.
I guess that would perhaps save the IS500 for Toyota and the CT5 Blackwing would be the GM wrap to use?
The V8/RWD ship sailed when GM killed the G-body. From then on, NASCAR was batantly the silhouette formula it had become in the late ’70s, but at least the car models remained reasonably current and relevant…
I do not.
There’s a precedent, the GM teams ran Colonnades until 1980 since the new for ’78 boxy A bodies high speed aerodynamics were so bad.
They’ve gotta get ready for the CamaroCross
NasCROSS
I’m pretty sure the Frances are badgering GM to put a Camaro on the Alpha platform since this year’s champion was driving this exact car that is not on sale.
Also, the Cup series still uses the Camry, the Supra is Busch…I’m sorry, xfinity series only. And horrifically ugly as a coupe with the proportions of a midsized sedan…
Are they going to keep running the Supra-like plastic body in the O’Reilly — was Xfinity, was Busch — series, or will that be a Camry again?
Last time I checked at the Toyota dealer, there was no V8, rear-wheel drive two-door Camry. For that matter, no Supra V8.
Dunno, but they are all the sudden running a V8 Supra in Australia for the Supercars series. Which, lo and behold, also has the Camaro and Mustang. (And I miss Holden too, yes…)
The 6th gen Camaro was an Alpha platform car…
…was referring to the story from earlier in that week. That was Alpha II, I guess? I can’t remember.
And they run the El Camino in the truck series, right?
Same deal for Nismo Super GT and the GT-R, yes?
They have Z’s in the mix now but I’m pretty sure ‘Zillas still run.
Isn’t that where they race the front engined NSX?
Im here for the camaro replacement, the nascar trailblazer.
You’ll get a Bolt, and like it.
I’m usually not one to do the whole, “They just need to build an affordable RWD sports car” thing, but GM really does need to just quit being a bunch of prudes and bring back the Camaro already. They’ve got a RWD platform and more money than God – just do it. Whether it sells or not it’s good marketing and it’ll give the performance engineers something to work on that isn’t a Corvette.
GM doesn’t have “More money than God”. Last quarter they only made a 2.6% net profit margin. They will likely end the year with an average in the 3.5 to 4% range.
Sport cars are not good marketing. They are executive passion projects that are getting less and less common today.
Relatively, they have money. It’d be easier for them to make a new sports car than a company like Mazda, for example. Plus, they already have an FR platform they could use.
Companies with money invest money in things that make them more money – not things that lose money. There was a reason the Camaro was killed off.
I’ll believe Cadillac is getting a new generation CT5 made in the USA when I see it happen.
Next year Cadillac will become the first legacy automaker where 50% of their annual sales volume is EVs…
GM hadn’t really been properly loaded since maybe the 1970s? I mean, they did throw money around in the ’80s like it was going out of style, but that was mostly borrowed. 90s and 00s was more of an attempt to fake it until they made it, which didn’t work. The current General Motors, formerly NGMCO, has tended to be a lot more disciplined, recognizing that money is something of finite resource when you only have about 17% of the market instead of 50%
Maybe they should stop pretending and just call the race cars Equinox, Escape, and Highlander.
I’d be ok with that, but something tells me the big top NASCAR execs would be like “We don’t race no *expletive* Station Wagons!”
After all, it’s ‘Murica, not Sweden. That said they did have an EV crossover concept a year or two ago, but haven’t mentioned it since…
They can still be shaped like two door coupes, it would only have to be a different decal set, nothing else about the car would really need to change
Not like there was an Impala coupe in the 2000s, or a Camry coupe in the 2010s, anyway, they’ve already sort of done that kind of thing
They race pickup trucks, so that ship has sailed. They’ll race anything, apparently.
There it is. That will be the next generation NASCAR race car.
More bread crumbs heralding the return of the Camaro?
Minor correction, Toyota uses the Camry in the Cup Series, and the Supra is used in the Xfinity/O’Reilly Series.
To quote the late great Harry Hogge, “there’s nothing stock about a stock car.”
That has been true for a long, long time.
Now that NASCAR is basically running a Kit Car series, it doesn’t make as much difference, somehow.