With the Chevrolet SS on its way out, Chevy will be looking for a new car to serve as the basis for its NASCAR stock car body for the 2018 racing season. The automaker has already confirmed its new racecar will arrive in time for the 2018 NASCAR season, but it has so far remained tight-lipped as to what it will be.
Logic would dictate that Chevy’s next car for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series will be the 2018 Malibu, seeing as Ford and Toyota run the Fusion and Camry mid-size sedans in the series. The debut of the SS as the brand’s NASCAR body came as a bit of a shock in 2012, however, so don’t rule out the possibility of Chevy shocking us all with a non-Malibu bodied racer come this time next year.
Chevy’s motorsports director in the U.S., Jim Campbell, refused elaborate on the brand’s 2018 NASCAR stock car body in a statement released by General Motors.
“It was already known that the Chevrolet SS was going to be discontinued in 2017,” Campbell said. “That information was originally announced last summer. As you know, we don’t talk about future projects. We’ll make any announcement regarding our next Cup entry at the appropriate time.”
If the Malibu were to serve as Chevy’s NASCAR body in 2018, it would mark the nameplate’s first appearance on track in the series since the early 1980s. The Malibu was Chevrolet’s NASCAR body style from 1973 through to 1983, when it switched to the Monte Carlo’s slightly sportier body. Chevy then switched to the Lumina body before the Monte Carlo was brought back in 1995. The Monte Carlo remained Chevy’s NASCAR entry until the Gen 5 regulations were introduced in 2007, at which point it switched to the Impala SS bodystyle.
Comments
It does’nt really matter. The body/drivetrain does not match the name!!!
Isn’t it time that Chevrolet push the envelop, and but a TRUE street car back in cup racing. And by that I mean one the average race fan can afford. The Monte Carlo & Impala & Lumina were cars fans could relate to because we saw them daily. And they were affordable. Now the Monte Carlo & Lumina were also production 2 door models. So the street version had sex appeal as well. Unfortunately for whatever reason car companies have decided 4 doors are the consumers only choice.