Jimmie Johnson's 2007 Chevrolet Impala SS NASCAR Race Car to Auction

The 2007 Chevrolet Impala SS race car driven by NASCAR legend Jimmie Johnson will be auctioned by RM Sotheby's on January 26 in Phoenix, Arizona.

During his full-time career with Hendrick Motorsports, Johnson won seven NASCAR Cup Series championships, tied with Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt for most in the NASCAR Main Series. This includes a record five consecutive seasons of championships from 2006-2010.

This car, chassis number 48-461, is part of that history. Wearing the blue and silver Lowe's scheme and wearing number 48, the number most closely associated with Johnson, the car won championships at Martinsville and Phoenix during the 2007 season. According to the auction listing, Johnson drove the car seven times from 2007 to 2009.

Although billed as an Impala SS, the race car's tube frame chassis and rear-wheel drive system are quite different from the front-wheel drive Impala sedans of the era. This generation of Impala road cars, at least in SS guise, had a V-8, which is a link to the NASCAR Impala. [It features a prominent front spoiler, a decklid-mounted rear wing, and a more upright profile than the previous generation of Cup cars. The Car of Tomorrow was replaced by NASCAR's sixth-generation chassis at the end of the 2012 season and was succeeded by the "Next Gen" beginning with the 2022 season.

After retirement, chassis 48-461 was restored by Hendrick Motorsports, according to the auction listing, and will be offered in its 2007 Phoenix-winning form and is expected to sell for $150,000 to $200,000 at auction. This is comparable to the $165,000 asking bid for the 2011 NASCAR Car of Tomorrow chassis driven by Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon when it goes up for sale in late 2022.

Johnson retired from NASCAR in 2020 and spent the next two years concentrating on his IndyCar campaign with Chip Ganassi Racing. After failing to find significant success, he announced his retirement from racing in September 2022, but quickly reversed that decision; in November 2022 he returned to NASCAR as a part-time driver and became part owner of Petty GMS with fellow seven-time champion Richard Petty.

He will run a limited schedule in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2023, beginning with the Daytona 500 scheduled for February 19. This is because Alex Bowman is using number 48 for Johnson's old team, Hendrick Motorsports.