Chevy despises NASCAR’s kit-cars

Terry Dolan, manager of Chevrolet Racing, recently addressed a variety of topics during an interview at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. One topic was why no Camaro in NASCAR.

“As we launched Camaro, we brought back an iconic production car to our portfolio. Part of what makes Camaro is the styling and the look of that vehicle. When we introduced it at the (various) auto shows, consumers originally were able to look at the brand and say that it replicates what they know Camaro to be.

“As we look at NASCAR, we wanted to maintain the integrity of the iconic brand and the brands that we race with. We just didn’t feel we could accomplish that vision by adapting the car to the common template format that we have here in this sport. We’ll always look in the future and see what opportunities exist, but within today’s boundaries, it just didn’t feel like it was the right business decision for us to make."

“Part of the iconic design of that car is the overall lines of the roof of the greenhouse and the sale-panel area. And for all the right reasons, as NASCAR has evolved the Car of Tomorrow to provide a safer zone for the driver, trying to adapt our smaller-roof coupe car to the larger roof sedan design just didn’t keep the integrity of the exterior design of the vehicle. We looked at it and we modeled it and we stepped back and we evaluated it, and felt for now it wasn’t the right decision for us to make."