2014 Chevrolet SS arrives first for NASCAR, then everyone else late next year

It only took 17 years after General Motors killed the last rear-wheel-drive Chevrolet Impala sedan for GM to decide that maybe a few of its more devoted shoppers wanted such a car (not counting the new, police-only Caprice.) This blurry prototype shows what Chevy will race in NASCAR next year, and hints at what it will offer as the 2014 Chevrolet SS sedan late in 2013. What's one more year at this point anyway?

As everyone in the auto industry knows by now, Chevy will import a version of its Holden Commodore sedan from Australia to fill the long-standing hole in its lineup; the Commodore last appeared on these shores as the short-lived Pontiac G8. While Chevy sold several versions of everyday models as tarted-up SS editions a few years ago, the practice produced an uneven bounty of performance cars and trucks, from the stillborn Malibu Maxx SS to the ultra-sleeper HHR SS and the nearly classic Cobalt SS.

By tying the SS to NASCAR's new models debuting at the 2013 Daytona 500 and designed to more closely resemble vehicles on the road, Chevy can also build on its racing fan base that has little to be excited about with the current Impala. GM says the new NASCAR resembles the production car so much it won't show the race version until it hits the track. The SS isn't expected to be a huge seller for GM, but given how much interest some buyers have in used police Caprices, the SS will have a built-in pool of potential customers.