required that the doors be bolted or strapped shut, with aircraft-quality seat belts (originally just a lap belt) for the driver, and heavy-duty rear axles installed to prevent the cars from flipping at racing speeds. These were the days when fans in the grandstands could easily identify the brands of stock cars racing on the track.

Generation 2 — 1967-1980

Still a stock body, but attached to a frame modified specifically for racing. Such ‘70s NASCAR icons as Richard Petty, David Pearson, Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough and Buddy Baker etched their names on the record books in “Gen 2” cars, and a whole new generation of race fans began to take notice of the sport. The modified chassis and more powerful racing engines were then being built by such renowned constructors as Holman-Moody, Banjo Matthews and Hutcherson-Pagan. But the cars were still very ‘stock’ from the perspective of fans in the grandstands, and the era of “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” attracted U.S. automakers to NASCAR, and opened the flood gates of manufacturer support for top-drawer NASCAR race teams.