Forget the Fusion and Avenger, the 2010 Ford and Dodge NASCAR racers will be mean street machines and real pony cars. That’s right, the Mustang and Challenger.

Both cars are expected to be closer to stock than any car in recent history, but that’ s not saying much.

The move was made by the NASCAR governing body in an effort to help the series. In the past both GM and Ford warned that the current Cup cars would turn NASCAR into a spec-racing series with every car not only being similar but looking the same. This, they argued, would in turn lead to a lack of brand identification and, therefore, a loss of interest in the series.

It seems they were right.

NASCAR has suffered a significant drop in not only attendance figures and souvenir sales, but also in TV ratings – indicating that the problem is in fact a lack of interest and not a lack of funds.

The new cars actually won’t be all that different, but they will look different, something that NASCAR is most likely hoping will be of interest to manufacturers looking to capitalize on some marketing.

Despite the move by Ford and Doge, GM will continue to run the Impala SS rather than the 2010 Camaro. Also, Toyota is continuing on with its Camry, mostly because it doesn’t have anything else. The sole Japanese automaker in NASCAR recently dropped the two-door Solara from its lineup.

[Source: Fox Sports]

Toyota has finally made the decision to stop producing the Solara Convertible. It’s not likely to be missed.

The Coupe model was discontinued last summer (in case you hadn’t noticed), but Toyota decided to keep up convertible production as there were no other drop-top models in the entire company’s vehicle lineup.

A few months later in December of ’08, Toyota then decided to pause production of the Camry-based vehicle, but retained its spot in the lineup, expecting a resurgence in sales for the summer of ’09. That never happened.

“I think there was some hope that eventually during the spring/summer months the market would bear a need,” said company spokesman Rick Hesterberg to Ward’s Auto. “We kept the tooling, just waiting to see, but that never came to fruition.”

The original Solara first came to market in 2000 and a second-generation of the car began for 2005. In that year Toyota sold almost 50,000 Solara models. Demand dropped to 40,000 in ’06, with 30,000 in ’07 and just over 20,000 in 2008.

The Solara Convertible is just the latest drop top to leave the market and is likely to be missed about as much as the PT Cruiser Convertible and Pontiac G6 Convertible. Other models that will bow out this year are the Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky and Honda S2000.

Is the Sebring Convertible next?

[Source: WardsAuto]