With the Chevrolet Camaro no longer rolling off production lines, and the brand two years behind NASCAR competitors Toyota and Ford in its evolution of the NextGen body design, General Motors is close to revealing its long-awaited fresh offering for the Cup Series.

The new design will have a lot to live up to, with Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson having won Chevrolet’s first Cup Series championship in the NextGen car this season, narrowly pipping the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas of Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe to the checkered flag.

What’s more, Chevrolet’s 15 wins in 2025 were also the most of any OEM, ahead of Toyota with 14 and Ford with seven. This has been the case since the NextGens were introduced in 2022, with the manufacturer having won 67 races in the Cup Series, compared to Toyota’s 41, and Ford’s 35.

Despite this success, Ford still leads the way in championships with three, a lead that Chevrolet will surely be hoping its new design can work towards narrowing.

“Well, I think our guys, along with GM, have worked on this, and it’s supposedly better than what we’ve got,” Rick Hendrick recently told Bob Pockrass. “So, closer to what Toyota and Ford have. They had a shot at the apple, you know, taking our car and getting their car better.

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“So next year, we gotta learn the car, it won’t be perfect right out of the gate. I’m super excited about the power, more power, and I’m excited about having a new car that we can work with that’s got a little more downforce.”

This work has been ongoing for some time now, with NASCAR’s Senior Vice President of Competition, Elton Sawyer, having told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio in September, via Daily Downforce, “We started working back with the folks there at GM probably over a year or so ago now…

“Then they started submitting the body parts, and then they go to a wind tunnel test where all the OEMs, our original equipment manufacturers, are there and watch how that test unfolds at the wind tunnel. So all the boxes have been checked, and looking forward to seeing the new Chevrolet when we get to Daytona in 2026.”

DON’T MISS

As eluded to by Hendrick, not only will his team have new bodies to work with next season, but there will also be more power on tap for 17 tracks – specifically those under 1.5 miles in length, along with all road courses. This follows an announcement by NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell that horsepower will be increased at those tracks in 2026 from 680 to 750 in an attempt to improve the racing.

Unfortunately, according to now two-time champion Larson, expectations for this increase in power and its effect on racing should be tempered, having said in October, as per On3, “It’s not way different.”

“I did a test recently at Kershaw, and nobody told me I had higher horsepower, and I never really realized it. So, yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s going to feel different or look crazy different. I think it will be better, but it’s not going to fix everything, you know?”