The Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS became one of the most successful cars in NASCAR and it began with a visit to Junior Johnson’s shop by a GM executive in 1982. Photo from wikipedia.org

Chevrolet’s General Manager Bob Stempel made a trip to Ingle Hollow, North Carolina and visted the race shop of NASCAR legend Junior Johnson in late 1982. The result of that visit brought about two major events.

The first occurred when Stemple pressed Johnson into remolding the stock cars that he had prepared for Darrell Waltrip in the Winston Cup series. Waltrip’s cars were built as Buick Regals at the time. Stemple was able to convince Johnson to recast the cars as Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS racecars.

Because of this, the second event came about unexpectedly. GM began to relax its 25-year-old rule against advertising performance attributes of so-called family cars, of which the Monte Carlo was one.

With Johnson and fellow car owner Richard Childress leading the way, a new day dawned at Chevrolet, who was now free to trumpet its feats. The Monte Carlo was soon on its way to becoming NASCAR’S most successful car. There were none on the grid for the 1982 Daytona 500, but in one year there were 14 present in the ’83 race.

Darrell Waltrip’s re-skinned racecar in 1983. Photo from wikipedia.org

Cale Yarborough won the 1984 Daytona 500 in a Chevrolet, while Terry Labonte won the Winston Cup championship that year in a Chevrolet. This was the beginning of four Championships in a row for Chevrolet as Waltrip won in 1985 for Johnson’s team, followed by Dale Earnhardt’s two Championships for Childress in 1986 and 1987.The Monte Carlo SS became the dominant body style in NASCAR through the rest of the decade when the car went out of production.

The Monte Carlo returned to NASCAR racing in 1995 when Chevy brought the car back into production, bringing Chevy several more NASCAR Manufacturers Cup awards until it again was discontinued from production, and was replaced by the Impala for racing.