Since 2018, the Chevy Camaro has represented The Bow Tie Brand in the NASCAR Cup Series, and it still does in 2025 even though the Camaro itself is no longer in production. The NASCAR-going “Camaro” will likely stick around for a while yet, and is even on track for an update for the 2026 racing season.
It’s not clear what that 2026 update will entail, which is teased in a post on social media, but it will likely involve aesthetic changes, potentially gaining a flatter nose to aid the Chevy teams in pushing at superspeedways.
Interestingly, the NASCAR Chevy race cars underwent a minor change for the 2025 season, deleting the Camaro script from the rear bumper and replacing it with bold Chevrolet branding in both the Cup and Xfinity Series. Even with the Camaro script gone, Chevy race cars still display the ZL1 badges in the Cup Series, representing the Camaro trim level without the model name.
Though the roadgoing Chevy Camaro is no longer in production, its continued use as a race car in NASCAR remains entirely legal under the current regulations. The Camaro replaced the Chevy SS in 2018 when it was still being produced as a consumer model. As long as a vehicle is in production as a street car when a manufacturer applies for competition, it remains eligible to race.
Without any other gasoline-powered models waiting in the wings for a NASCAR debut, the Camaro will race in the Cup and Xfinity Series for the foreseeable future – at least until the series switches to the all-electric crossover body style. The Bow Tie Brand recently unveiled the Chevy Blazer EV.R, which will eventually succeed the Camaro (or at least the Camaro body style) in the Cup Series.
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While the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing would make one badass Cup Series race car – an idea GM Authority entertained with a rendering – it just won’t happen, and neither will a Corvette-based NASCAR Chevy race car.
As GM Authority was the first to report, an in internal effort within GM aimed to bring a next-gen Chevy Camaro to market before it was killed off, although the project isn’t dead yet. If a next-gen Camaro makes it to the production line, we expect it to hit the track in NASCAR, too.
Comments
Total joke.
GM will tell you they need to be in NASCAR for brand awareness. Yet the car they race has been discontinued.
So what is the “business case” for NASCAR?
People lapping up disposable crossovers aren’t watching.
Win on Sunday, nothing to sell on Monday. Just who is GM trying to win over with NASCAR ?
Just wait. Once NASCAR switches over to EV crossovers it will be the end to 80 years of stock car racing. It won’t survive.
Exactly… that WAS the business case for being in NASCAR back in the day. (As Tom Cooper (above) alluded to as well.)
Heck, when Chevrolet made changes to the design, it had to sell a minimum number of street cars with a similar silhouette…. that’s what gave us the awesome Monte Carlo SS Aero Coupe back in the mid-to late 1980’s! Loved that rear window! I think the rule at the time was that they’d have to sell at least 3000 of them retail to qualify for racing. And that’s what kept people engaged, when they knew they could purchase something with that connection to NASCAR.
The language keeps evolving. Chevy was being allowed to race the discontinued Camaro, “but couldn’t make any changes to it” (as Ford and Toyota could to their still current and for sale models), as per “the rules”. But now, the Camaro will get an “update”. And I seriously doubt that the Blazer model will even survive to a point when it’s represented on the track. Chevy and NASCAR continue to disappoint…
they can make changes to it regardless of whether or not the camaro is still in production. That was never in the guidelines.
Yea, absolutely do not want to use the Blackwing because then consumers might want to buy it and then it would be harder to get rid of.. oh wait, not any harder than dumping the Camaro… For the record, Chevrolet AND NASCAR are dead to me (and probably millions of others) when I see an SUV pretending to be a race car on any track. Dead!!!!!
Were they dead to you when they started the Truck series?
Well, when the “series switches to the all-electric crossover.” I’ll be done with NAPCAR.
NASCAR is a joke. They need to dump the illusion that they race stock cars. Have a single platform built to the exact same specs and put the emphasis on teams and drivers not the silly cars that think they are Camaros and Camrys and Mustangs. I used to love NASCAR when the cars I actually drove were racing but those days are gone.
Go to your local short track, they’re stuck in the 80s like you
You just don’t get it.
I do. I work at a local stock car track. I find both entertaining but it does get a little old seeing the same 3 or 4 guys win week in and week out. I prefer the spec cars in the Cup Series. Makes things interesting.
It really would be nice to see something even Close to a STOCK car racing in NASCAR…
They are essentially all the same underneath the Paint jobs…
Maybe someone should consider bringing back the I.R.O.C Series !!!! at least the cars were all supposed to be the same there !!!!
Then you could see who the best drivers and teams were in that Racing series ….
IROC is back. There’s a race happening at Laguna Seca this August. No, I’m not kidding.
GM does something stupid AGAIN!
My company along with Lucks Country Style Foods sponsored the #51 Jim Bown Busch Grand National car in the 1990’s. Jim had been running the Lumina body style and had quite a few Luminas built and ready to race when the Monte Carlo body style came into being. The Bown family said that they could run the Lumina cars for 3 years before the NASCAR rules brought about changes due to the Monte Carlo coming about. So … the GM guys can run two more years at least … personally as a GM vehicle owner I’d love to see GM bring back both the Monte Carlo and the Camaro for sale to the public. I recently bought a new Chevy, but a car like the old Monte Carlo would be in my driveway had they been available. If anyone at GM is actually reading these post … the public is hungry for what is classified as a “Personal Luxury Car” like the Monte Carlo was, and a sporty two door like the Camaro … those two cars would fill the needs of about 40% of the buying public … Management @ GM, you’ll never SUV & Pickup your way to financial health selling just those segments as you’re trying to do, we need two other great GM vehicles to make a comeback, the Malibu as was built in the 2007 model year in the Sedan an Maxx wagons (I owned an loved both) that averaged over 34 mpg with the V6 ! And the Astro Van in both work van an passenger models (owned 4 of those over the years) that lasted forever, my last van is currently being used by a commercial grass cutter and is over 22 years old. GM, listen to your public, and if the Monte Carlo or Camaro wins NASCAR races on Saturdays and Sundays, well it will sell every other day of the week.
NASCAR just stop pretending these are stock cars and race under any name they want. Call it a Plymouth Super Bee if you want. Just as representative.
NASCAR is unfortunately dying a slow death due to creep of WOKE-ness, politics, and it’s eagerness to trot out some type of EV as its future. WOKE-ness and politics have turned off the fan base. Most people go to watch racing and not who’s the best DEI team/driver.
I also find it amusing that Ford and Toyota seem to follow Chevy’s car designs as they appear to be the most aerodynamic. NASCAR needs to wake-up or see it soon disappear.
Bring back the good old days of NASCAR that the fans loved.
“Fans:” read: boomers stuck in the 1980s. If the sport catered to you it would die with you.
The “reimagined” Camaro. I love this stuff.
EVs are talked about because of the auto industry has been bullied into ridiculous emissions and Nascar would never survive Ev racing also auto manufacturers are all mixed up with the ev race with ice also making a comeback because the Trump administration has signed executive order cancelling emissions on the auto industry so we’ll see Camaro born again on Cadillac’s CT5 platform soon
Nascar rules allow a discontinued body style to run for up to 5 years.
This was fairly common back the 70’s and 80’s when the “old” car was a better race car than the “new” design. Richard Petty did it all the time.
“As long as a vehicle is in production as a street car when a manufacturer applies for competition, it remains eligible to race.” Hmmm. So, we can bring back the Superbird?