Ciprian Florea wrote:At the 2017 Detroit Auto Show, Toyota unveiled the eighth-generation Camry, the company’s sportiest and most advanced midsize sedan to date. Alongside the new road car, the Japanese carmaker also took the covers off its new NASCAR racer, which will be used in the top-level Cup Series starting this year.
Although it’s by no means new under the skin, the Camry NASCAR is completely new on the outside, featuring all the important design elements seen on the road car. To achieve this, Camry chief designer Masato Katsumata oversaw the project with engineers from Calty Design, Toyota’s North American design studio, and Toyota Racing Development (TRD).
Up front, the road-going and the NASCAR models are almost identical. Of course, the race car is lower and wider and details such as the headlamps, grilles, and vents are only painted, but the nose and the engine hood are true to the car you’ll find in dealerships later in 2017. As with most modern NASCAR racers, the side view is significantly different due to the simulated two-door design, the shorter wheelbase, and the longer rear overhang. The same goes for the rear end, which uses a much simpler bumper and a bigger spoiler due to the series’ aerodynamic regulations.
All told, Toyota’s new NASCAR weapon is as gorgeous as the road-going sedan.
“The collaboration between Calty Design Group and TRD has produced a NASCAR Camry that showcases aggressive styling that is sure to turn heads on the race track and among our fans in Toyota showrooms across the country. Reimagining both the Camry race car and its production counterpart has been a tremendous undertaking and our goal has been to maintain parallel design characteristics so our fans can enjoy driving a Camry that closely resembles the one their favorite NASCAR driver races each weekend,” said Ed Laukes, vice president of Integrated Marketing Operations for Toyota Motor Sales.
The NASCAR Camry will make its track debut at Daytona Speedway on February 18 in The Clash at Daytona, before the Daytona 500 race on February 26. Toyota enters the 2017 NASCAR season as the defending champion after winning the manufacturers’ championship for the first time in 2016. As of 2017, Toyota also won the drivers’ championship in 2015, while Camry drivers have won 95 races since the company joined the series in 2007.
Needless to say, the new design won’t do much to help Toyota win races, but transferring the road car’s styling cues onto the NASCAR is an important move for the brand. Not only the new Camry will turn heads on the street, but it will do so on race tracks as well. And given that the 2017 NASCAR will include 36 events all over the U.S., the car’s new design will definitely get a lot of attention.
