Will Chevy’s Camaro Be Racing In NASCAR Beyond 2024?

There may be a change coming to the NASCAR Cup series after 2024, or not.

This past week Chevrolet announced that the final sixth generation Camaro will come off the assembly line at the Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant in Michigan in January 2024.

After that the future of one of the last gas-powered muscle cars to be produced is open for discussion.

“As we prepare to say goodbye to the current generation Camaro, it is difficult to overstate our gratitude to every Camaro customer, Camaro assembly line employee and race fan,” said Scott Bell, vice president, Global Chevrolet. “While we are not announcing an immediate successor today, rest assured, this is not the end of Camaro’s story.”

So what might this mean to NASCAR?

Chevrolet and NASCAR have a long history together. The first Chevy victory at NASCAR’s highest level came in 1955 with Fonty Flock behind the wheel of a Bel Air at Columbia Speedway in South Carolina. In 2023 as of this writing, they now have 837 wins in the NASCAR Cup series. That’s the most in the sport’s history.

Since they entered the sport Chevy has raced models from the Bel Air, Biscayne, Chevelle Laguna, Lumina, Monte Carlo and Monte Carlo SS, and the Impala and Impala SS.

In recent times the Lumina ran from 1991 to 95 when it was replaced by the Monte Carlo then by the Impala SS in 2008 and it’s ugly winged COT version. The Impala came a year after Chevy stopped production of the Monte Carlo in 2007; but the Impala remained in production until the 2020 model year. In NASCAR however, the Impala had been replaced by an SS in 2013.

What might this tell us when it comes to the future of the Camaro in NASCAR?

Few would argue that among the modern NASCAR stock cars, the Camaro best represents what is seen on the street (as does Ford’s Mustang), and that is not by accident. When NASCAR began to develop its current Next Gen car, it did so with the intention of making them match their street counterparts as closely as possible.

The fifth-generation Camaro debuted in NASCAR’s Xfinity series in 2013. The Camaro ZL1, made its Cup series debut in 2018 followed by the sixth generation Camaro ZL1 1LE in 2020.

That sixth generation it seems might just be the last.

There are several things in play when it comes to the future of the Camaro on the street. First of course is the elephant in the room. Electrification is becoming the norm in the automotive industry. But neither Chevy nor Ford have plans to swap to all-electric offerings from internal combustion engines (ICE) anytime soon. In fact, Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley told Fox Business:

“We’re investing in ICE segments where we’re dominant and where we think, as competitors leave the segments, we can actually grow,” Farley said, “I find it intriguing that we’re portraying the future of our industry as monolithic. That’s not how it goes. That’s not how it’s going to manifest itself.”

Despite that there are reports from the industry that a battery-electric Mustang based on Ford’s Mach-E platform (which was advertised as a ‘Mustang’ but looks nothing like it) will make its debut about mid-2028 to replace what will be the last internal-combustion Mustang model (and hopefully look more like it). There are also reports that Chevy will launch a new all-electric 4-door model with the Chevrolet Camaro name in 2025.

NASCAR is well aware that the auto industry is moving towards full electrification. The bridge to that will probably be hybrid, a mix of electric and ICE, and the sport did design its Next Gen car with that in mind. There has also been talk of an all-electric companion series for the future, not unlike the FIA’s Formula E series is to Formula 1.

Chevy will be able to race the Camaro for the foreseeable future. NASCAR confirmed this week that according to its rules because the Camaro was a production vehicle at the time of its original submission, it remains qualified to race in Cup and Xfinity even beyond 2024 if Chevrolet chooses to do so.

And according to Chevrolet that’s exactly what they intend to do. When asked for a comment, a Chevrolet representative said there would be nothing beyond what was in its statement released last week.

“Chevrolet’s products and our relationship with our customers benefit from motorsports,” said Jim Campbell, Chevrolet U.S. vice president, performance and motorsports. “Our plan is to continue to compete and win at the highest levels of auto racing.”

That alone seems to indicate that the Camaro will be racing in NASCAR, at least for the foreseeable future. Beyond that, the entire industry could be going hybrid, and eventually full electric. Let’s just hope that the next Camaro, however its powered, actually looks like a Camaro.