West Coast Customs to Create Street-Legal NASCAR Toyota Camry TRD
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West Coast Customs will create a street-legal version of the Toyota Camry TRD NASCAR Next Gen Cup car during the July 29-30 race weekend at Richmond.
West Coast Customs may offer a package for customers to build their own Next Gen-looking Toyota Camry TRDs.
If that goes well, look for Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro kits soon after.
Fans attending the Richmond NASCAR Cup race July 29-30 will be able to watch car customizer West Coast Customs turn a road-going stock Toyota Camry TRD into a street-legal Next Gen Toyota Camry TRD Cup car.
“I've been trying to get a deal done with NASCAR for over 12 years now,” West Coast Customs founder Ryan Friedlinghaus told Autoweek. “I want to bring my West Coast Customs Experience to the track where the fans can see us build a car live.”
Last year the project started coming together.
“I actually met him a year ago, after one of our California races in 2022,” said Pete Jung, NASCAR’s chief marketing officer. “I got a tour of the shop. And I think he was kind of reenergized around the launch of our new race car, the Next Gen car. He said, ‘I'm trying to do (a street version of) this car, and I just really want to put the pieces together. And I was like, I think it's a no brainer.”
They brought in Camry NASCAR Cup driver Tyler Reddick, who is right now fresh off his win at Circuit of the Americas last weekend. Reddick will participate in the build “…to ensure the custom Toyota Camry TRD is as close to the NASCAR Next Gen car as possible,” according to NASCAR.
That’s not to say the finished car will be able to qualify for the Toyota Owners 400, held at Richmond that same weekend. While it will look close to authentic on the outside, underneath it’ll be the same Camry TRD you can buy at a Toyota dealer. While that car gets its own shocks and exterior bodywork, this one will not be a tube-frame anything and no built Cup motor under the hood. Friedlinghaus has decided what will go on the build.
“It's gonna be a front spoiler kit, a rear diffuser, and it's gonna have side skirts with the side exhaust—a functional side exhaust—and the rear wing,” said Friedlinghaus. “The stance is gonna be lowered. It's gonna have the Goodyear tires on it, but we're doing tire stickers. So it looks like the actual car tire. I mean, I'm trying to give it that look, but also make it something that somebody who’s a Toyota owner can relate to.”
There are performance parts available for the street Camry from the TRD catalog, but none of those will be on this first build, though some could find their way onto the build at a later date. For now it’s just the NASCAR Cup car look that they’re going after.
“The plan was first to get something out there, get people excited about it,” said Friedlinghaus. “I looked back at the Dale Earnhardt Monte Carlo, and that was a collector car that people could buy from the dealership. But (the plan right now is) to just get it done and just to show the fans that this Next Gen car is actually really cool and, ‘Look, your Camry could look just like it with these parts that we're making!’ And then including the fans to be able to build the car with my guys alongside them, I think is going to be a really cool little piece.”
Eventually, there could be something like a “West Coast Customs Camry Cup Car Kit” that anyone could buy to give their Camry a race car look. And if that works out, there could be a similar kit for the Mustang and Camaro. The possibilities are big. But it will all start with this project at Richmond. Even Reddick is excited.
“This is such a cool opportunity to be a part of and I’m looking forward to working with Ryan and the West Coast Customs team on this project,” Reddick said. “I’ve always loved working on cars and have been a fan of their customizations, so working with Ryan and his team to create a one-of-a-kind Toyota is going to be fun.”
Mechanical fun.
“The car will start as a stock Camry TRD, and then we're going to disassemble it, and then reassemble it with all of our parts that we made for it,” Friedlinghaus said. “And then we're going to wrap it live as well. So it's going to have a paint scheme that's going to replicate what Tyler is going to race, hopefully that weekend.”
The completed car will be on display at future NASCAR Cup races before ultimately hitting the auction block to raise funds for the NASCAR Foundation.
