Exclusive: Toyota racing boss talks about the new 2015 Camry
Toyota will have an all-new Camry race car for the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Season, with the street version serving as the pace car for the 2015 Daytona 500.
The new Sprint Cup Camry was unveiled Saturday afternoon at Charlotte Motor Speedway, prior to the running of the Bank of America 500.
The key design point of the new Camry race car -- as with the rival Generation 6 NASCAR Chevrolet SS and Ford Fusion cars -- is that it has a much closer appearance to its production car equivalent than the old Gen 5 cars did. The three automakers, collectively known as OEMs, or original equipment manufacturers, have worked closely with NASCAR to make that critical objective a reality.
With the 2015 Camry Toyota becomes the first of the automakers to come out with second iteration of the Gen 6 cars, which were approved for competition by NASCAR in late 2012 and debuted at the start of the 2013 season.
"The 2015 Camry is something that we actually started working on about 18 months ago," said TRD, U.S.A. President and General Manager David Wilson in an exclusive interview with FOXSports.com. "It really comes back to the philosophy that NASCAR and the OEMs adopted with the introduction of the Gen 6 cars and that is to make sure what we're racing on the track has relevancy to the product that we're selling in the showrooms."
The street version of the 2015 Camry is available at Toyota dealers nationwide. The NASCAR version will be ready to roll at Daytona Speedweeks next February.
"This past April at the New York Auto Show, we unveiled our 2015 model year Camry," said Wilson. "And of course, we knew far enough upstream that that was coming that we went to work on it. It was a terrific experience because we again worked with our design partner, Calty, who has a studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as well as Newport Beach, Calif."
According to Wilson, NASCAR signed off on the new design in August.
"We have the same box that we're working with in terms of aero -- downforce and drag," he said. "We went through the qualification program procedure, with our OEM colleagues in attendance, so there was complete transparency. We passed all of the tests and so we're excited to get that car."
Racing the car for the first time at Daytona will be a big marketing plus.
"It's a dynamite-looking car," said Wilson. "And the neat thing is, we debut it on the race track and run it in anger at Daytona at the 500 and it just coincides that it's our turn to pace the Daytona 500 as well, so that's going to be kind of a neat way to introduce it to the fans."
"We're thrilled to finally be able to show off our new 2015 Camry race car -- becoming the first manufacturer to update the 'Gen-6' model that was introduced before the start of the 2013 season," added Ed Laukes, Toyota Motor Sports vice president of marketing, performance and guest experience. "We anticipate that fans will appreciate the development behind this bold Camry design -- both on the race track and the showroom floor. Fans will have the chance to get an up close look at our new 2015 Camry in our NASCAR activation and fan engagement activities."
