The cars were from the showroom floor. Mangle a fender in practice? Simply head to the nearest dealer and negotiate a new piece of metal. Tires wearing too quickly? There's a parking lot of potential spares right outside the track.

Driver Frank Mundy recalled years ago to The Los Angeles Times how he entered a Hertz rental car in a NASCAR race. Said Mundy, "I collected $100 and the car rental was $37, so I cleared $63. That wasn't bad in those days."

Such is NASCAR's wonderful lore.

That was back before safety and technology and even more ingenuity took over in the sport. And, one suspects, before car rental agencies became more diligent.

Eventually, the middle words of National Association for Stock Car Automobile Racing become an oxymoron. The "stock" disappeared from "stock car."

The past 20 years, if you could tell a Ford from a Chevy from a Dodge from a Toyota on the track, you had exceptional eyesight. If you thought you could see a resemblance between cars on the track and cars on the highway, you needed your eyes checked.

Now, in coordination among NASCAR, the four manufacturers and the race teams, there is a concentrated effort to return "stock" to the conversation.

"Anytime the fans can relate to something they would be purchasing, that's going to be good," says longtime crew chief Mike Ford. "If you can narrow that bridge between what happens here and what you buy at the showroom, if they know some of that technology is coming from here, that's good."

Ford Motor Company has unveiled its 2013 Fusion that will compete in Sprint Cup racing next year, and Dodge has rolled out its 2013 Charger. Toyota is expected to reveal its new car soon, likely at Charlotte later this month, while Chevy is in TBD mode.

Already, there are Ford Mustangs and Dodge Challengers in the Nationwide Series that bear more than a passing resemblance to their real-life counterparts.

"It brings back the relevancy of NASCAR on the race track to what fans have in their homes and in their parking lots and garages and at their parking spots at work," NASCAR President Mike Helton said in January.

What happened

Detroit discovered decades ago that thousands formed allegiances to brands of automobiles, sometimes according to which were hottest on the stock-car circuits. Manufacturers built marketing campaigns around on-track success, embracing the slogan of "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday."

But by the 1970s, manufacturers' support of NASCAR became sporadic or even non-existent. Just as television went from three channels to three thousand, more makes of cars were on the streets, from all over the world. Loyalty grew more tepid.

We need to be careful not to lose perspective in our depths of nostalgia. The showroom-to-the-race track days were fleeting. And though some old-timers grouse about generic cars as if some recent creation, "the stock in stock cars was gone a lot longer from what people realize," says Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition, saying that dates back to the early 1980s when smaller cars came onto the scene.

It changed even more dramatically with NASCAR's attempt to "keep the playing field level when it comes to aerodynamics and things like that," Pemberton says.

A more universal template was created. Then came the Car of Tomorrow that is used now.

"When we developed the new car, job one was about safety ... not necessarily about the look," Pemberton says, admitting "we went in a generic way."

"I felt like when we went to this new car, that was one of the things that was going to hurt our sport a little bit. Fans wanted to be able to identify with the cars," says ex-driver and ESPN analyst Dale Jarrett,

What's happening

Once the technical aspects of the current car were mastered, says Pemberton, "We went to work on the cosmetic part."

That means an Impala on the track that might look like the one in your neighbor's driveway. A Camry on the track like the one you rented on your last business trip.

That is "extremely important to ... all four of the manufacturers," says Tim Duerr, motorsports marketing manager for Ford Racing.

"It's extremely important to those of us that may be in the car business," chuckles the owner of Dale Jarrett Ford in Charlotte, N.C.

There is a mutual admiration between the entities making this happen, the manufacturers and NASCAR.

"Our manufacturers are more engaged now than they probably have been the last 20-25 years," Pemberton says. "They have input in what the cars look like. The new Nationwide cars and the Cup cars look more like the cars on the showroom floor more than just their logo."

"I want to applaud NASCAR for listening to the fans and listening to the manufacturers and taking a step in the right direction," Duerr says.

Maybe, as Jarrett frets, "brand loyalty has gone away." Then again, Duerr knows that "NASCAR has the most sponsor-loyal fans of any sport," so maybe some Sunday wins will again impact Monday sales.

"America is in love with their cars again, and manufacturers are doing a better job with their product line," Pemberton says. "So the way to get that message out there, with 100,000 people in the stands and five or six or seven million watching on TV, it's pretty good advertising."

And if it's not exactly the days of showroom to speedway, there's a little more stock car in what they're watching.