Toyota showed up with a big display Monday at the 2017 North American International Auto Show by debuting its 2018 production Camry, along with the 2018 NASCAR Camry race car, which will be raced in the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, starting with The Clash at Daytona on Feb. 18.
The new Toyota race car features a sleek design with an effort to showcase a body style that more closely replicates the production model of the Camry.
“The 2018 Toyota Camry NASCAR race car has been years in the making, and to unveil it simultaneously with our new production Camry is a milestone moment for our organization,” said Ed Laukes, Vice President of Integrated Marketing Operations for Toyota. “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.”
The design of the production Camry was led by Masato Katsumata with a radical redesign that was carried over to the race car by Calty Design Research, Inc., Toyota’s North American design studio, and Toyota Racing Development to ensure that the race car exemplified the mold of the production Camry.
Calty previously worked with Toyota and TRD to update the NASCAR Camry when NASCAR introduced its Gen-6 models in 2013, and again when Toyota updated the Camry race car in 2015. The design group also worked with TRD on the 2015 NASCAR XFINITY Series Camry, the 2014 Toyota Tundra for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and the current NHRA Funny Car Camry.
NASCAR drivers Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin were on hand to help unveil the new Camry.
