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:
Source: Chevrolet
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.
You could get a V8 in the production ninth-gen Impala, but it sent power to the front wheels, not the rears. Source: Deposit Photos
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