NASCAR has been actively developing their next-generation cars, referred to as the Car
or of Tomorrow, for the last couple of years. Starting in 2007, they will begin phasing in the new cars at selected tracks as they continue developing the CoT. The current cars will still be used at all the other tracks for 2007 and 2008. In 2009 the new cars will have an exclusive. At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Dodge and Toyota both showed off their new Avenger and Camry-badged racers. As you can see above, the silhouette racer transformation is pretty much complete. See if you can guess which one is which. The original images are after the jump.
The body of Toyota's Nextel Cup Camry was on top
Dodge unveiled their new Avenger badged racerExcept for the shape of the rear side windows and the headlight and taillight stickers, they're virtually indistinguishable.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
cl2 8:30AM (1/14/2007)
Precisely why I have quit watching and following NASCAR.
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Bob 9:08AM (1/14/2007)
NASCAR, IRL or CART. Pick your single/dual chassis racing series. I'll pick my favorite pillow and take a nap. And before anyone gets their F1 snobbery into gear, take a good look at the previous selections. That is exactly where Bernie and the boys are taking F1.
And that is precisely why I find myself only interested in Rally, MotoGP and LeMans type racing. Throw in the odd production based road course stuff to round it out. High dollar motorsports has become a pissing contest for the engineers and marketing folks. And we are the ones being told it's raining.
Where is Jim Hall when you need him?
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bathtub gin 9:43AM (1/14/2007)
This isn't much of a surprise - Nascar forgot what their middle name - Stock Car - meant a long time ago. This is just another step in the transformation from a motor sport to some sort of WWE-type soap-opera. I don't go back far enough to remember when Tim Flock and Lee Petty drove actual cars that were modified for racing. I can remember Bobby Allison driving in a car that looked like an actual Buick Regal, and Bill Eliott driving in a car that looked like an actual Thunderbird, even if they used the same chassis underneath. Now they want to tell us that because it has a blue oval decal on it, it is supposed to be a Ford. No thanks, not interested. If Toyota wants to join this mess, they are welcome to it.
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motorman 9:49AM (1/14/2007)
they have to keep the cars equal or if one car turns out to be the best aero wise you would have 43 cars out there all the same make.
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Steve 10:09AM (1/14/2007)
4.: "they have to keep the cars equal or if one car turns out to be the best aero wise you would have 43 cars out there all the same make."
...but wasn't that the whole idea behind (stock car) racing, and the premise of win on sunday/ sell on monday in the first place? I thought racing was supposed to be about making the best car possible, not being fair to the drivers...
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sam 10:40AM (1/14/2007)
Nascar wants to foster competition. They say that if they make all the cars the same, then the competition will be fair, except that it won't. If all the cars are the same, then nobody will be able to pass. I think that every team should be able to make small tweaks to their body shape. Then we could have bad drivers winning because of good cars.
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JayP 10:55AM (1/14/2007)
NASCAR is less about racing and more about multi-million dollar sponsorships and multi-car teams. I'm surprised the CoT doesn't have an Outlaw wing to add more decal space.
NASCAR hit it's peak in the mid-late 80's. Stock-bodied cars going over 200mph, drivers smoking on caution flags and fistfights after the race.
It really ended when Harry Gant quit racing to go back to building houses.
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Sgt. Hulka 10:58AM (1/14/2007)
An unmitigated joke. The crest of the NASCAR wave has broken.
The IROC series is on "hold" for one reason - They're already racing club cars - It's called NASCAR.
Watch for OEMs to start bailing out with the next 18 months.
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whofan 11:47AM (1/14/2007)
NASCAR is all about the drivers and race teams these days.
As a car enthusiast I can`t watch NASCAR.
You might as well say all the cars out there are Studebakers. Whats the difference?
NASCAR it a great sport, but its not stock car racing.
It may well be better that way, because its more about people than machine.
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Pistol 12:13PM (1/14/2007)
All of the above comments are right on the mark. I have followed NASCAR since the early 70's, and have watched the evolving of the "RACE CAR". The COT does take them back to when they looked like the real cars, but not far enough. The true NASCAR fan has long griped about the shape of the cars and the way officials want to "fix" the races. Everybody has to be equal thereby making the racing predictably boring.
The COT is a step in the right direction, heading back to the REAL stock car. Maybe, just maybe, Brian France will step in a hole and hit his head and knock some sense into it and bring back the REAL STOCK CAR.
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James2 1:09PM (1/14/2007)
NASCRAP... where to begin.
1. Socialism masking itself as "racing".
2. Squash innovation before it can raise its ugly head. How dare anyone try to make a faster car!!!
3. A points system that rewards mediocre consistency over, you know, actually "winning" the races.
4. Deathmarch scheduling. So tedious and boring that a "Chase" has to be invented to sustain interest up to very end.
Why oh why does GM, Ford, DCX and now Toyota even bother to drop big money on this retarded farce is beyond me. Especially since the first 3 need to concentrate their dwindling resources (aka money) on making real cars that in no way, shape or form resemble anything you'll find running around in boring, dreary circles at Daytona.
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Stphane Dumas 1:23PM (1/14/2007)
maybe we should bring the Australian V8 Supercar racing here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V8_Supercar
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che culattone 1:30PM (1/14/2007)
The thing that worries me most when I see things like this is that that asstart Bernie Ecclestone sees it too, and then he gets ideas for F1.
As F1 goes closer and closer to this model, I get more and more worried. I can only hope that somehow Ecclestone is put out of his misery, and that someone intelligent and forward thinking realises that parity does NOT equal good sport in the world of racing.
Companies like Porsche, Audi and Ferrari have built their whole brand and technology on the back of their F1 or Lemans racing. That better not end on the F1 side...
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Avant1963 1:54PM (1/14/2007)
You might as well say all the cars out there are Studebakers.
Please do not slander the good Studebaker name by equating it with NASCAR.
Signed,
A Studebaker Owner
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justanotherrs 5:51PM (1/14/2007)
I agree completely with #3. Who really cares about cars that have no connection to what you can buy at your dealership. Probably one of the coolest racing series ever was the original Trans Am series. Boss 302's vs Z28's and the like. Seems to me since we are living in probably the best automotive era ever that it shouldn't be much of a stretch to race mildly modified street cars again. With the new Camaro, Challenger, and face lifted Mustangs coming, what better way to hash out the new muscle car wars than in a real racing series with real (non-tubular frame) cars.
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JayP 6:03PM (1/14/2007)
Trans Am. There is no God if the Mustang/Camaro/Challenger are not let loose on the road courses of North America.
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big jimmy 11:54PM (1/14/2007)
The reason Modren nascar sucks. you can't tell a toyota from a dodge
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JC 1:22AM (1/15/2007)
Every one of the comments I have read on this article seem to come from people that are un-educated to the real goings-on of NASCAR.
This is why I tend to stay away from the internet with the exception of nascar.com and jayski.com when it comes to NASCAR.
I'm not even going to try and explain the intricacies(sp?) of NASCAR to you un-educated types, as I don't have that kinda time.
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Richard Warren 8:36AM (1/15/2007)
Stock car racing used to be awesome, when they actually had some "stock car" left in them. Dummy bodies, dummy frames, dummy engines and dummies watching. Get back to "stock" and I'm back in.
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Jay Evans 9:02AM (1/15/2007)
"The V8 Supercars themselves are based on either the Ford Falcon or Holden Commodore, and bear some resemblance to the production models outwardly, but are highly modified to suit the motorsport application, and are strictly governed in all aspects of performance in an effort to keep all the drivers on an even footing to create closer, more exciting racing. Because of this, entire fields of 30+ drivers are separated by just one second over qualifying laps at some events."
Gee... sounds just like NASCAR to me.
All you NASCAR haters, please name one top ($$$) Professional (on track) racing series where the cars are in anyway close to production and/or aren't heavily restricted performance wise by the rules.
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