Automobile theory is a core course in vehicle engineering program. The contents in this course involve crossover of vehicle system performance analysis and interdisciplinary knowledge points. Under the new engineering education idea, traditional teaching modes cannot be applied to the actual needs for whole vehicle research and development with regard to vehicle theory analysis, two-degree-of-freedom control stability model, and smooth-going model, etc. Aiming at this practical problem, this paper proposes the idea of parallel stratification teaching of automobile theory via ADAMS software. The suspension model, steering model, tyre model, road surface model, brake model and whole vehicle model in the software are used to support each link of the contents in the automobile theory course, and to break down the barriers between“theoretical teaching, practical teaching and corporate research and development”, so as to enable students to quickly apply their knowledge to production practice, while changing students’traditional idea of vehicle design and improving the teaching quality.