Remember when Cadillac Built LMP1 Cars?

Both RACER and Racecar Engineer have cover stories this month about Nissan's LMP1 car.  I'm working on an article giving a bit of a status update on the GTR LMP1, and some of the teething problems that Nissan is having with the car, and unlike my article on WEC hybrid subclasses that is still suffering in writers block hell, this one will actually see the light of day.

Anyway, as I was reading about Nissan, I remembered another odd manufacturer adventure into LMP1 racing, the Cadillac Northstar LMP1.


The Cadillac Northstar LMP01, which Cadillac campaigned for the 2001 racing season

Truth be told, the Cadillac wasn't weird in the way that the Nissan is weird.  The Cadillac was a fairly conventional prototype racer.  As the old saying goes, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then by the end of the Northstar LMP's development life, Audi must have been blushing, because the car looked a lot like an Audi R8 in Cadillac clothes.  What was so odd is that Cadillac, the company that for years was famous for building low performance land yachts that were slightly larger then a Nimitz class aircraft carrier, decided to go sportscar racing.  Also, the "Northstar" name wasn't just a subtle nod to Cadillac marketing, the car was powered by a highly modified, race prepped, twin turbo version of the Cadillac Northstar V8 engine.  You know, the same engine that was in your grandfather's Cadillac Deville.

Cadillac campaigned these cars for three years between 2000 and 2002 with one goal, win at Le Mans.  As most of you know (or at least can guess) they were less then successful at this.  Cadillac had two basic problems.  First, during the three years of the Northstar LMP program, Cadillac only ran a limited race schedule.  In 2001, Cadillac debuted the Northstar LMP01 (the 2001 redesign of the car, pictured above) at Le Mans.  The story wasn't much different in 2000 (where they ran at Daytona and Sebring prior to going to France) or 2002 (where they only ran at Sebring prior to going to Le Mans).  I'm convinced that had Cadillac actually raced the cars prior to the biggest race of the year, instead of trying to figure it out as they went, the cars would have been more successful.

A limited schedule was only half of Cadillac's problem however.  Although the Northstar prototype was only in existence for three years, there were three different versions of the car, the Northstar LMP (2000), the Northstar LMP01 (2001) and the Northstar LMP02 (2002, pictured below).  The 2001 car was essentially the 2000 machine with updated body work for improved aerodynamics.  The 2002 car was a completely different car however, with a new chassis, new aerodynamics and modified and improved engine and transmission.  The reason Cadillac kept trying to reinvent the wheel every year is that they entered sportscar racing at roughly the same time Audi was starting to grind the competition into dust and Cadillac was doing everything they could think of to build a car that could catch the Germans.  Again, if you ask me (and no one is, but that doesn't stop me from talking), the team had to deal with the issue of trying to come to grips with a new car every year and had limited race time prior to Le Means to work out the bugs.

The Cadillac LMP02, which was campaigned in 2002, and was the last of the Northstar prototypes.



Race car historians judge the Cadillac program as a failure, with the car never finishing better then third at any race, and never better then ninth at Le Mans.  By the end of the car's life however, there were moments were you could see potential in the car.  Had GM decided to continue developing the car, committed to running full seasons, and handed the program to a top notch race team like Pratt & Miller, we may have seen Cadillac been able to go toe-to-toe with Audi in the years after 2002.  Or maybe I should stop taking nips from the cooking Sherrie.