2025 NASCAR Cup Series Champion Kyle Larson is the cover driver for the NASCAR 26 video game and he helped make the announcement in a unique way.
Larson did burnouts on the deck of the USS Midway in San Diego this week ahead of NASCAR’s race weekend at Naval Base Coronado, but he wasn’t in his regular Hendrick Motorsports Cup Series Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.
The car featured significantly different front and rear lightning designs. The slim headlights were wrapped in accent light bars and connected by a narrow upper grille opening. Out back, the dual taillights were swapped so that the outside one was smaller than the inside one, opposite the current Chevy Camaro ZL1 Cup Series car.
The Cup Series Camaro was updated for the 2026 season, but this is an entirely different look. Since we know there is an all-new Camaro on the way next year, could it have been a stealth sneak preview of what’s on the way?
We reached out to NASCAR, Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports to find out and the response was that the car itself is a two-seat demonstrator owned by NASCAR that is designed to be manufacturer agnostic so that any team or driver can use it for promotions and that it is not meant to illustrate a future product.
That doesn’t explain all of the other Chevrolet-specific design elements, however, and no further information about the chioces made were provided.
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As for the next generation Camaro, which will spawn a new Cup Series car design, it is expected to be a four-door instead of a two-door, but built on an evolution of the same platform that underpinned the sixth generation model. The chassis is also used for the Cadillac CT4, which has been discontinued, and CT5, which is getting a redesign next year.
We don’t know much more about it, but it will likely be offered with one or more versions GM’s new sixth generation small block V8, which has been revealed as a 535 hp 6.7-liter in the 2027 Corvette Stingray and Grand Sport and in 5.7-liter and 6.6-liter iterations for the 2027 Silverado 1500 pickup.
