{"id":284295,"date":"2025-11-15T08:10:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T08:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/284295\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T08:10:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T08:10:17","slug":"chevy-racing-the-discontinued-camaro-for-nascar-is-just-sad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/284295\/","title":{"rendered":"Chevy Racing The Discontinued Camaro For NASCAR Is Just Sad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chevrolet stopped building the Camaro<\/a> in December 2023\u2014nearly two years ago. While the production car is decidedly dead, the nameplate hasn\u2019t disappeared from the company\u2019s lineup, so long as you consider Chevy\u2019s race cars to be a part of its lineup.<\/p>\n

The Camaro name and styling have been used to shroud Chevy\u2019s NASCAR stock cars since 2018, and despite the car no longer being in showrooms, it will continue to grace America\u2019s circuits for 2026 in the NASCAR Cup Series \u2013 presumably because the company doesn\u2019t have another front-engine performance car to take its place.<\/p>\n

\"Vidframe<\/p>\n

\"Vidframe<\/p>\n

The updated car is proof that the Camaro still serves a necessary purpose. And it\u2019s not like the design is languishing; designers and engineers put work into the road car\u2019s design to ensure the race car and road car got updates\u2014in a sense\u2014for the 2026 model year. From the announcement:<\/p>\n

The latest edition Camaro ZL1 racecar will feature upgraded styling that is aligned with Chevrolet\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s carbon-fiber hood insert and rockers, plus ZL1 1LE-spec front grille and splitter.<\/p>\n

While these changes can\u2019t be ordered on a new car\u2014again, because the 2026 Camaro doesn\u2019t exist as a road car\u2014you 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\u2019s 2026 Performance parts catalog<\/a>. There\u2019s also a set of optional bronze wheels that, admittedly, do look very good:<\/p>\n

\"ScreenshotSource: Chevrolet<\/p>\n

Weirdly, I think running NASCAR stock cars that look like Camaros isn\u2019t too strange, at least in the world of NASCAR. At least the road cars had V8s, which you can\u2019t say about Toyota\u2019s 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s been getting better over time.<\/p>\n

\"DepositphotosYou could get a V8 in the production ninth-gen Impala, but it sent power to the front wheels, not the rears. Source: Deposit Photos<\/p>\n

Honestly, I was half-expecting them to switch to something that used the face of a Corvette for 2026, seeing as how that\u2019s the only true performance car in Chevy\u2019s 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\u2019ll stay alive in the best way it knows how: using a big loud V8 to go racing.<\/p>\n

Top graphic image: Chevrolet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chevrolet stopped building the Camaro in December 2023\u2014nearly two years ago. While the production car is decidedly dead,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,129156,48,7574,129157,634,129158,113004,82],"class_list":["post-284295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-camaro","tag-canada","tag-chevrolet","tag-dead-cars","tag-nascar","tag-new-cars","tag-race-cars","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}