The future of the Chevy Camaro nameplate is, at the moment, is somewhat in limbo. Previous reports indicated the muscle car was set to go out of production at the end of 2023, while more recent murmurings say it will stick around until the end of 2025. No matter what the future has in store for the Camaro, the Bow Tie says that the nameplate will continue racing in NASCAR for “as long as it exists.”
GM Authority spoke to GM’s NASCAR program director Eric Warren following the debut of the NASCAR Next Gen Chevy Camaro ZL1 this week, who provided us with a little more insight into the future of the Chevy Camaro and the brand’s participation in the NASCAR Cup Series. When asked how the future of the Camaro could affect Chevy’s NASCAR participation, Warren said there are no plans to yank the Camaro out of NASCAR in the coming years that he’s aware of and that his team is looking forward to many more years of racing the nameplate in the series.
“Now that we’re going to have the closeness between the race car and Camaro, we’re going to race it as long as Camaro exists because it’s the closest connection between the race car and production car, which is exciting for all the fans, Camaro owners and customers,” Warren told GM Authority in a video interview. “We have no plans to swap models at the moment that I’m aware of. I look forward to a long ride with this car and look forward to the success of it.”
Even if GM does follow through on its rumored plans to drop the Camaro in the near future, that doesn’t mean it would immediately pull out of NASCAR. Chevy has raced various different nameplates in NASCAR over the years, including the Impala and Monte Carlo, appears to be open to racing something else in the series depending on how things pan out.
“It could be a different nameplate,” Warren told GM Authority executive editor, Alex Luft, in a follow-up interview. “We’ve always swapped cars around, so who knows? GM offers trucks and crossovers and what will the vehicles on the road look like ten years from now? It’s really what’s the most relevant – what do the people in the stands and watching [at home] driving today, what do they want to drive, what’s the best combination of internment, loyalty and selling cars. A lot depends on how the market goes so it can all change and we’re going to sell the Camaro as long as we can.”
There’s no need for Camaro fans to panic just yet, either. The NASCAR Next Gen cars will go racing for the first time in 2022 and Warren is anticipating they’ll be around for quite some time – especially since they were designed with provisions in place to accommodate hybrid powertrains at some point. As anyone familiar with GM’s current strategy will know, electrification is hugely important to the automaker at the moment.
“The vehicle unveiled today will be around a long time, at least the concept that we went through – modularity, [provisions for] packaging electric motors and electrification and there are steps to that,” he said. “But the concept of it, I don’t see it changing.”
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Comments
CT4, CT5, and Camaro are gone in 24 months or less.
To be replaced with nothing. Maybe more front drive crossovers.
I’m still gonna buy the last ICE camaro.
Once again, GM is developing product based on politics while ignoring the market. It will take DECADES for EVs to reach 50% share if they ever do. Our antiquated grid cannot support it and the price of electricity will rise continuously with the morons in DC doing everything they can to kill cheap and plentiful coal and oil. Recharging an EV will be more expensive than ICE. Also, there is a huge industry of gasoline filling stations that will have a voice. No way they’re converting to one hour recharging “filling” stations. Finally, I will save my GM V8 Tahoe and Camaro as long as I can keep them running. If/when they are no longer repairable, I’ll find another make that builds what I want to buy instead of a boring grocery-getter that requires several thousand dollars for a 240v charging station in my garage.
Based on your logic, it sounds like a prime reason to finally update our “antiquated grid.”
With Democrats in charge, we can’t even keep the lights on in California consistently during summer months. People are relying on generators. Yet, this is supposed to be the model for the entire USA?! This is the state that most militantly wants to ban ICE powered vehicles (and our Constitutional rights… and rewrite US history, but I digress). How do they expect to recharge what would amount to staggering numbers of politically correct electrics on a failing power grid? Despite the outsized wealth held by elites in this state, have our radical leftist Technocrat “influencers” contributed anything beyond lip service toward resolving the state’s myriad of problems (and I don’t mean building massive self-sustaining gated compounds to isolate themselves from the realities the rest of us face with security exceeding that of your typical state penitentiary)?
Hell no, but they do have the power to ban free speech and completely squelch President Trump, trample America First and force a radical political agenda down everyone’s throat. And I do mean everyone’s. If nothing else, the power brokers in California are determined!
So, what’s the next step to support all this wishful thinking? Catalytic converters and strict emissions controls and testing for growing numbers of gasoline and diesel powered home generators? Tesla solar panels and battery walls mandatory on every house? That’s fine and dandy for the elites who are robbing us all blind, but what about the rest of Californians (and Americans), the rate at which our rapidly diminishing slice of the pie is measured in minutes, not days or years?
It doesn’t take a crystal ball to project that the average US citizen will be increasingly homebound, reliant on public transportation, constantly tracked and monitored and required to present a vaccine passport or equivalent simply to travel and gain access to food and the most basic services in the very near future – becoming either fully submissive to far-left Marxist–Wokexist tyranny or quite foreseeably left to fend entirely for oneself for being part of the Resistance. The Chinese Social Credit System is knocking on our door. The left’s solution to all of the problems the left has created is simple: take away our rights, strip 99% of us of ownership of housing and goods (including personal transportation) and rule with an iron fist. It’s the only certainteed way Gates and the other crowned progressive Big Thinkers fathom to “Save the Planet”.
Idiot Boy, fitting screen name. At least you back it up with incredibly stupid comments like the one you just made. A word of advice, take off the tinfoil hat. It’s cutting off blood flow to your brain.
A bit sky is falling by some measures? Granted.
But since you’re so informed, why don’t you refute it point by point from your lofty perch on intellectual high ground? Perhaps you’re willing to propose some well researched and viable grid solutions? Slinging insults when you have nothing useful to contribute hardly puts you in a qualified position to dispense advice on headwear, Shane…
With your conspiracy theory-laden rant, it would be wasted energy, as it would do nothing to persuade you. You can’t comprehend logic, but only follow demagoguery.
You cannot offer a solid rebuttal let alone solutions because your indoctrination didn’t equip you to think, merely to parrot. Your simple playbook relies on insulting the intelligence of others who refute your doctrine, name calling and approved word dropping. Demagogue? Check, it’s in there. Good work, Comrade!
No demagoguery here. My “rant” is based upon careful observation and analysis, not dogma. Looky there, I appropribated a word from the edjubicated left’s preferred arsenal of vainglorious verbal smokescreenery.
News flash for you, Idiot Boy. Trump lost a fair election because he was just too incompetent to lead or even pull off the coup attempt on January 6. It really was his Beer Hall Putsch.
I’m gonna smoke two joints now. All my best, Shane. Goodnight, Austin Texas wherever you are…
🤙🏿https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-6U0ccc_Hg&t=141s
And bidens border is secure too. lmao
Seems like gm has made effort to move into next phase of NASCAR racing. Time will tell if Camaro/ ICE survives much longer. Will gm pull out of racing if they only make EV street vehicles?
If NASCAR rules stay the same that the vehicle must be in production, is going to have to go by the wayside. NASCAR race cars are similar in style to the manufactured model but different dimensions to concur with the rules mainly for safety. The industry will have to come up with a standard frame and body and only run against different engine manufactures.
But what will happen the day ICE vehicles are no longer in production, can a body of a EV be used on a chassis with an IC engine? Or will the track be filled with EV and speakers are used to emulate a V8 exhaust, other wise it be real quiet and maybe a boring race. Instead of the Firecracker 500, it’ll be the Tesla 200?
Nobody will go to a Nascar or NHRA race to watch an electric car. Going fast is only part of it because you can make anything go fast. People want the V8 engines roaring… Just like they want to see some sheet metal getting roughed up and a little tire smoke. Even at a 1/4 mile (1000 ft.) track, the jet cars are ok to watch and go extremely fast but there’s not much noise or wow factor. It’s only when the nitro powered funny cars and dragsters take to the strip that the crowd really goes wild and gets excited.
It’s only us old guys (me included) who equate noise with speed. EVs will be just as exciting to watch, maybe even more exciting, considering their performance capabilities (acceleration, maybe all-wheel-drive). I think what we’re running now will be considered “contraptions” in the future.
Have you ever watched Formula E? They make a god-awful whine that you can’t stand for more than a minute or two. EVs will kill the racing industry.
@Ken Zwicker Bruh i honestly dont think you understand why electric cars are not liked by many. There is nothing interesting about watching cars that make nothing but tire noise.
If racing has a return on sales, it will continue to be in the races. At one time NASCAR vehicles were the actual production vehicles with some engine modifications. So the term win on Sunday, sell on Monday had some truth. Because of safety today’s NASCAR vehicles only look like a production car and it’s nowhere the same as a production model mainly for safety. When Chevy, Ford or Toyota win on Sunday, do sales jump?
Some manufacturers such as Ferrari aren’t getting behind Electric perse. They are embracing synthetic fuels. I hope GM is noting synthetics too.
I was in the market spent two years looking at electric. Tested for month. The propulsion is awesome, the quiet driving is cool.
The things that sucked. Charging. The silly anxiety. & ironically the QUIET driving. Then the weight.
I live in LA woke capital of everything. I did the right thing: Bought new LT1. I did it to support of Camaro and ICE motors.
People dont realize after the novelty rubs off on electric they become what they are, unpragmatic, sterile. Completely neuters the driving experience.
Not everyone owns a house to have home charging. I dont, I’m in Apt. Unless you have infrastructure and on 220 minimum or 440 its a miss too.
I live across the street from 440 chargers at a Chevron station. It didn’t work correct, over charged and then or was full with people in que. Some charging spots are sketchy. The last time there; Cant lie, two goofy looking Napoleon Dynamite looking Prius owners slap punch fighting over a charger. This was pretty awesome.
I found it added friction to my life and need to drive very little. And if one drives for work in city or long distance it has to be problem.
Also just read data saying 1:5 Electric drivers are returning to ICE. Which isnt very compelling
Until solid state batteries become apparent and theres parity in distance per charge, then people will migrate. When it does it’ll be compelling. I’m not anti but I think its being over rushed because of the narrative.
I leased my car, and perchance the Gov/EPA go inquisition mode on ICE I will buy it off
I shared a SS with my Ex and just bought this. Ill keep supporting, buying this car if they build this car.
Wonder if GM and Chevy has done ANY market research where any one of its customers is asking for electric sports car. Besides electric boffins/geeks or people trying to make money on it, I’d say No.
In an About Face, Ferrari Says It Will Unveil Its First Fully Electric Car in 2025 Dylan that was the most recent headline given on Ferrari.
The sports car companies are trying to do a mix of hybrid ICE and EV models. To keep the Hybrid legal synthetic fuels will be needed to meet emissions.
We have plenty of gas but no carbon free gas.
These high end models can afford to try this as money is no object to their customer base vs say some guy in a Equinox. Synthetic fuel will not be cheap.
The move to EV is more economical than anything else as if you add up the cost of what it takes to make an ICE engine legal it is very expensive in development and parts alone.
When it was just a single cam and lifter set up with all8 cylinders firing all the tim3 it was cheap, now multi cam. Direct injection, multi cylinder, and multi converter and sensors this stuff gets expensive and even now they will only meet refs for a few more years needing more help in the future adding more cost.
The long list of mfgs going EV is all about making the average buyer happy not catering to the small enthusiast market that we make up.
The cold harsh reality is the boring plain CUV models are what keep companies alive not sports cars. They sell more so they get more attention.
As for NASCAR. These new cars were built to be adapted to hybrids. The MFGs are asking them to adapt to hybrid tech so they can market the EV part of these cars in the future. The gas engine will just run a generator and EV will move these cars. That is how they will make 500 miles wide open.
Then it is up to NASCAR as to how to over see it.
At times I also wonder if NASCAR is looking to use the stages for battery changes too.
Folks it is out of our hands at this point. No matter who you vote for or what you prefer as an automotive enthusiast the future is already set. This become about money and once automakers saw the ability to make more money on EV models at the same prices they have made the commitment.
It is not about the EV models, batteries, charging or cost of today but of where it will be in 20 years. They know now these goads will be met by that time and they made the move.
I am just the messenger of reality here. I am not thrilled about this either but if you keep on believing the miss information of the web posters you will be even more disappointed.
From what I see and have learned about future products is they will be as fast or faster, they will trace as far on a charge as most do on a tank of fuel today. They will charge in a time of a fill of fuel. The cost will be held to where we are at today.
My hope is if the automakers can make good money on the EV they will have money to build cars we enthusiast will approve of at reasonable cost.
The one thing we will have to give up is engine noise. That is the one major thing we will lose.
Like every change there is good and bad.
Even the horse lovers bought cars in time.
Dylan, agree completely. Owning a car is to make life easier. Hopefully fighting for a charger is not in our future.
Barra might try to find a qualified female to pilot the Camaro in Nascar while bringing the car to the winners spot in every race. gm may have to have 5 or 6 Camaro’s in the running to do it but the need a woman and a team who can win races.
I remember junior johnson brought Chevy back to racing fans heard seat full fast
The next generation car (almost could be called a “spec” car), will be more affordable to field and could open the door to other Mfg.’s like Dodge and or Hyundai/Kia to get involved? As gm focuses on EV’s for China, it’s very possible they leave NASCAR completely as the Camaro goes away again.
As others have stated, Camaro (as we know it today) is dead in a few years. I would bet gm will exit NASCAR at that point? Maybe it will return as an EV, but with few sales outside of NA and declining sales of the segment overall, it’s probably done for good.
The good news is that there is a used car market. HiPo V8 Camaros and Corvettes will be there to buy for the rest of any poster’s life. Ever watch a Mecom auction?
Dan; what world are you living?
Maybe they will use the famous slipping and shuddering 8 speed auto which is “Normal” by Mary Barra standards.
GM has simply been running on the quality of yesteryear and it will bite them in the backside soon enough.