WATCH: Former Cup Series crew chief converts a NASCAR Car into a street-legal car

Chris Andrews, a former NASCAR Crew Chief, has converted a Cup Series car to a street-legal car. He made a number of changes to the Toyota Camry internally to convert it into a street beast.

NASCAR on NBC has shared a video of the black Camry on X. The car is initially stationary but as the video plays on, Andrews cold starts the fine-tuned Toyota and lets it roar, hinting at the power under the hood.

The Camry comes with a staggering 860 horsepower and can be regarded as one of the most powerful street-legal Toyota cars in the United States. It was raced in the Cup Series under Joe Gibbs Racing and is based on a retired JGR chassis, powered by a Triad Cup Series engine. It also comes with an added windshield wiper, headlights and backlights as per street norms, and a working horn.

The car was exclusively built by Chris Andrews, who worked with Richard Childress Racing (RCR) in the early 2000s. He was also Vasser Sullivan Racing's Race Engineer in the International Motor Sports Association, a racing series based in the United States and Canada.

Andrews started as an RCR team engineer before the team promoted him to Robby Gordon's crew chief the very next year. He began working for the Cingular Wireless Chevrolet team and on the #31 Chevrolet in the 2004 NASCAR Cup Series championship.

---

How are NASCAR Cup Series cars different from street-legal cars?

The differences between NASCAR Cup Series cars and legal cars are plenty. However, multiple surface-level differences can be pointed out in general - different engine configurations, fuel types, cooling systems and transmissions.

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Ty Gibbs (54) rounds turn one during the NASCAR EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas | imagn

NASCAR cars generally come with powerful engines to produce maximum horsepower, whereas street cars have configured engines to find a balance between power and fuel efficiency.

Cup Series cars run on high-octane fuel, which is different from general gasoline used in the street cars. The Cup Series cars come with heavily optimized manual transmission for quick acceleration, whereas street cars have basic automatic and manual transmission options.

Also, the cost of a Cup Series car can be many times more than its street counterpart.

In a nutshell, the Cup Series (stock) cars and street cars are built for entirely different purposes. While engineers try their best to achieve that extra millisecond by fine-tuning the race cars, the streetcars are made to fulfill the needs of the average customer.