Charlotte, 19 June 1949. On a dusty, rutted three-quarter-mile dirt track, NASCAR runs its first race for showroom cars, the Strictly Stock. In front of a crowd estimated at between 13,000 and 22,500, Glenn Dunaway crosses the line first in a Ford. Then comes the inspection: under his car are “bootlegger springs”, stiffened rear springs that kept a car level when the boot was full of illegally distilled whiskey. Disqualified. The win, and the 2,000-dollar prize, go to Jim Roper, who had come from Kansas in a Lincoln.

Seventy-seven years later the question is the same, but the answer is a good deal less obvious. In 2026 there are three NASCAR cars in the Cup Series: the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, the Ford Mustang Dark Horse and the Toyota Camry XSE. They are three different bodies fitted to the same car, the Next Gen, racing since 2022: a steel tube chassis, a composite body and a 5.87-litre naturally aspirated V8 that in 2026 produces 750 horsepower on ovals under a mile and a half and on road courses, 670 on the other ovals and around 510 at Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta, cut to around 465 at Daytona and Talladega in the second half of the season. If you are starting from scratch, our guide to what NASCAR stands for covers the basics.

What cars does NASCAR use in the Cup Series in 2026

Start with Chevrolet, which comes with a small paradox. The road-going Camaro has not been built since the end of 2023, and yet it is still on track: the racing version is called the Camaro ZL1, and for 2026 it received an updated body, with a larger hood bulge, a revised grille and redesigned rocker panels. Chevrolet has not said which model will replace it, only that it is working on it.

Ford races the Mustang, in the Cup Series since 2019 and in Dark Horse form since 2024. Toyota races the Camry, which brought the Japanese brand into the top series in 2007 and has run in XSE form since 2024. Three showroom names, then, with little or nothing inside them that you would find in a showroom. The word stock, as in “standard production”, has stayed in the name of the sport like certain nicknames that stick long after they stop describing anyone.

The Next Gen: one car, three bodies

The Next Gen is the seventh generation of car in the top series. It made its debut in February 2022 at the Clash, the exhibition race at the Los Angeles Coliseum, and that year’s Daytona 500 was its first points-paying race. The idea behind it was simple to state and hard to carry out: one car for everyone, with many components from single suppliers, to keep costs in check and bring race cars closer to road cars again, at least in appearance.

Compared with the previous generation, almost everything changed. The wheels went from 15-inch steel rims with five lug nuts to 18-inch aluminium wheels with a single centre lug nut. The old four-speed manual gearbox gave way to a five-speed sequential. At the rear, independent suspension replaced the solid axle. The body is symmetrical and made of composite material, and a diffuser appeared under the rear of the car, a first for NASCAR. The chassis is a modular frame of steel tubes, built for the teams by a single supplier.

Not the engine: that remains the manufacturers’ business. And it is the reason why, under three bodies that look rather alike, a war between brands is still being fought.

The engine of NASCAR cars

The Cup Series engine is a naturally aspirated V8 of 358 cubic inches, that is 5.87 litres, with a pushrod valvetrain and two valves per cylinder: the classic architecture of American engines, which in a race runs at around 9,000 rpm. The carburettor was retired in 2012, when electronic fuel injection arrived, after more than sixty years of loyal service.

Each manufacturer has its own engine builders. Hendrick Motorsports and ECR Engines work for Chevrolet, Roush Yates Engines for Ford, and for Toyota it is Toyota Racing Development, TRD, which designs and builds its racing engines in Costa Mesa, California.

Power, on the other hand, is decided by NASCAR, and it is decided track by track. Since the Next Gen’s debut the benchmark was 670 horsepower at most tracks. In 2026 it rose to 750 on ovals under a mile and a half and on road courses, seventeen tracks on the calendar, through a larger tapered spacer on top of the intake manifold. On the superspeedways of Daytona and Talladega, where the cars run in a pack inches apart, and at Atlanta, which uses the same rules, power drops to around 510; and for the late-August race at Daytona and the 25 October 2026 race at Talladega, NASCAR cut it further, to around 465, together with a lower spoiler. Here power is not something you chase: it is something you take away.

From Strictly Stock to Next Gen: seven generations

Line up NASCAR cars from 1949 to today and the story is one of a gradual drift away from the showroom, with the odd attempt to return.

The first generation, up to 1966, is that of the Strictly Stock: production cars, with no major modifications. With the second, from 1967 to 1980, full roll cages arrived and the doors stopped opening: drivers climbed in through the window, as they still do today. The third, from 1981 to 1991, brought smaller cars with a 110-inch wheelbase. The fourth, from 1992 to 2007, drifted further and further from production lines, all the way to the asymmetrical bodies nicknamed the “Twisted Sisters”. The fifth, the 2007 “Car of Tomorrow”, put safety first and returned to symmetrical bodies, with a large rear wing at first. The sixth, from 2013 to 2021, was developed together with Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota to bring back cars that looked more like the ones on sale. The seventh is the Next Gen.

Anyone who has followed NASCAR for a few years will recognise a few cult models too. The Chevrolet Monte Carlo in which Dale Earnhardt finally won the Daytona 500 in 1998, at his twentieth attempt. The Ford Taurus, raced from 1998 to 2005, followed by the Fusion until 2018. The Dodge Charger, the last Dodge in the top series: the brand left in 2012, the year of Brad Keselowski’s title with Team Penske, and, at least up to the 2026 season, has not returned to the Cup Series.

And then there is Toyota. The Camry arrived in 2007 and had to wait until its fortieth race to win: March 2008, Atlanta, Kyle Busch. It was the first win by a foreign manufacturer in the top series since 1954, when Al Keller won in a Jaguar on the track laid out at Linden Airport, New Jersey. The drivers’ titles followed, in 2015, 2017 and 2019.

The cars of the other NASCAR series

The Cup Series is not the only national series. In the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, the second tier, the cars are the Chevrolet Camaro, the Ford Mustang and the Toyota GR Supra. The Craftsman Truck Series is for pick-ups: the Chevrolet Silverado, the Ford F-150 and the Toyota Tundra, joined in 2026 by Ram, back in the series with Kaulig Racing’s Ram 1500s. For a brand, choosing the series matters as much as choosing the team, and we cover it in our guide to which NASCAR series to sponsor.

What a sponsor sees in a NASCAR car

For anyone in marketing, a NASCAR car is first of all a surface. The hood and rear quarter panels are the primary sponsor’s space, and in NASCAR the primary sponsor can change from one race to the next: the same car can wear one livery at Daytona and another at Martinsville. Each car also carries a few mandatory decals, the same for everyone, from the series’ official partners, such as fuel and tyres: the long row of technical decals that once covered the front fenders, like the one in the photo, has all but disappeared, and with the Next Gen the race number moved forward into that very space.

But this is where a livery risks becoming an empty sticker. The car is on television for about three hours, roughly how long a NASCAR race lasts, but it also lives in the paddock, in hospitality, in fans’ photos and in the shops of the cities that host the races on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series schedule. A brand that buys only the surface pays for the space; one that builds an activation programme around the car buys what that space can become. Who sponsors NASCAR today is in our list of NASCAR sponsors, costs and formats are in our guide to NASCAR sponsorship, and the way we work is on the page of our NASCAR sponsorship agency.

Glenn Dunaway’s bootlegger springs would raise a smile from any inspector today. But the question Al Crisler, the chief inspector who disqualified him, faced that day is the same one every team still faces in front of a Next Gen: how much can you change a car that has to stay the same as all the others?