Cadillac takes risk at LeMans

LEMANS, France (Detroit News) -- When Butch Leitzinger zooms down the back Mulsanne straightaway at 200 mph this weekend, he'll do it at the wheel of an unlikely race car -- a Cadillac.

Cadillac's Northstar LMP

This is not your grandmother's Caddy. It's a Cadillac Northstar LMP race car, designed to run France's grueling 24 hours of LeMans and telegraph a message to prospective car buyers in Europe and North America: General Motors Corp.'s Cadillac is serious about performance.

LeMans "really is like no other race in the world," said Leitzinger, 31, of State College, Pa., noting that in recent years some major contenders haven't made it to night racing. "The speeds are so high and the straights are so long."

A Cadillac has not raced at LeMans for 50 years and then it was not sanctioned by the division. But this year, four Cadillacs will run, including two officially backed by the 98-year-old luxury-car maker.

Cadillac's run for the checkered flag is the latest push by a major automaker into the top ranks of motorsports. Automakers want to transform their presence at the track into a marketing, merchandising and technological bonanza that pays dividends at the showroom.

"Obviously, there's some risk associated with going into a racing program," said Michael O'Malley, general manager of Cadillac. "What we want in our first years are solid, reliable finishes."

That is not as easy as it sounds, even for the industry's biggest powerhouses. DaimlerChrysler AG's Mercedes-Benz team last year withdrew from LeMans after two cars flipped. Toyota Motor Co., last year's favorite, didn't come close to finishing, let alone winning. And Ford Motor Co.'s foray this year into Formula 1 racing with its Jaguar team is struggling to be competitive.

Yet there is little doubt among automakers that racing, be it LeMans or Formula 1, is becoming a crucial piece in the global strategies to win -- and keep -- customers.

Annual costs for a LeMans program can range from $10 million to $65 million, industry executives say, while Formula 1 teams spend $100 million or more each year.

Racing "is by far the most powerful communication tool for a car company on Earth," said Wolfgang Reitzle, chairman of Ford's luxury car group, which includes Jaguar. "There is no comparable media event which gets the attention and is linked to the essence of a car company, the product."

Neither the costs nor the benefits of racing are news to Cadillac or a sister team racing two Corvettes in this year's 24 hours of LeMans.

GM's presence is intended to signal that the world's largest automaker is emerging from decades of cautious corporate corpulence and now is good enough and fast enough to compete with the industry's hottest brands.

GM's debut at LeMans comes as G. Richard Wagoner is midway through his first month as GM's chief executive officer. Wagoner is pushing GM to be fast and adaptable to changing circumstances -- core attributes of any racing enterprise.

"When we go racing, we don't take years to develop a car," said Jeff Kettman, program manager for the Cadillac Northstar LMP. "We do it in a matter of months. This is as much a training ground for the mind-set as it is the technology."

Even as GM has watched its market share slip away despite hot markets in North America and Europe, the automaker has touted its ability to deliver cutting-edge technology to customers. No division, however, makes bolder claims than Cadillac.

The division's global marketing campaign is dubbed "Art & Science," effectively promising that next-generation Cadillacs will fuse the unique lines of American design with the best technology available in the industry.

This weekend's LeMans race is a prime chance for Cadillac to support its bold claims. The two Northstar LMPs driven by Leitzinger and five other drivers from five countries are equipped with Cadillac's night vision system, which uses thermal imaging technology developed with Raytheon Co.

Mounted on the right headlight stack between the upper and lower lights, a small night vision camera reads the road ahead, reaching four times farther than headlights. It can detect deer, dangerous hot oil slicks or a stalled car turned sideways in the middle of the unlit track.

"No one's ever done it," said Doug Fehan, program manager for GM's Corvette racing team.

Cadillac's turbocharged Northstar engine was built by McLaren Engines of Livonia on specifications developed by GM Powertrain. Tweaked continually over the past six months, the engine delivers 570 hp and pushes the car above 200 mph.

If the engine, carbon brakes and brake rotors perform well in a race designed to tax the durability of men and machines, the result could prove a marketing motherlode for Cadillac executives and engineers. They crave respect from tech-savvy European consumers who demand quality and reliability from their cars.

The technology exchange between Cadillac's LMP LeMans program and its production car programs so far has been a one-way street. Efforts to make the night vision system smaller and lighter for the LeMans cars likely will be funneled back into Cadillac's retail models. Modifications making the Northstar engine lighter, faster and more fuel-efficient already are being studied by GM Powertrain staffers.

Cadillac's foray into LeMans isn't just an exercise in high-performance engineering and marketing. It's about attitude.

Pushing beyond limits historically has not been a corporate characteristic of GM. Its cars and trucks, however reliable, have seldom scored points for trend-setting design or heart-fluttering emotion.

The only time Cadillacs ran LeMans was in 1950, when Briggs Cunningham entered two type 50-61 Cadillacs, one of which had a custom-built body which earned it the nickname "Le Monstre." The cars finished 10th and 11th.

Cunningham's entry was not backed officially by Cadillac. Nor were previous entries of Chevrolet Corvettes, a GM brand since 1953. The times -- and GM's circumstances -- have changed.

DAMS, a private French team owned by Jean-Paul Driot, will run two Cadillac LMPs, though they are not considered official Cadillac entries.

Meanwhile, GM executives have given Cadillac a three-year commitment for LeMans, estimated to cost $20 million annually.

The move to LeMans, Cadillac officials say, already is paying dividends with enthusiastic customer response and increasing media attention to the brand, its racing plans and coming production vehicles. The unexpected turn to LeMans symbolizes the risk-taking espoused by Wagoner and practiced by arch-rivals Ford and DaimlerChrysler.

"In the past there might have been some people within the company that might not want to go toe-to-toe with the rest of the world for fear of failure," said John F. Smith, the former Cadillac general manager who negotiated the marque's move into racing.

"You might win or you might lose, but you improve the breed by competition," said Smith, now vice-president of GM's Service Parts Operation.

Characteristic of recent GM initiatives, the automaker is using its presence at LeMans to highlight common corporate themes fashioned by Chairman John F. Smith Jr. and continued by Wagoner.

There are common design cues of hospitality areas, signage and the pit areas for Cadillac and Corvette, a deliberate attempt to signal that GM is one global company and not a collection of brands.

There is emphasis on technology consumers already can buy in GM cars, not just admire from the grandstands. The pace cars for LeMans, special edition Cadillac Seville STSIs powered by Northstar engines, are equipped with GM's Onstar global positioning system. Race organizers could use the system to manage the pace cars in the event of an accident.

And there is GM's accelerating push on the Internet, which confounded LeMans race organizers when GM said it wanted to transmit driving telemetry from the Cadillac LMPs over the Internet. Called "the connected car," GM's service will enable enthusiasts and would-be customers to follow the race over the Web.

GM's drive at LeMans is intended to reverse Cadillac's stodgy image, particularly among Europeans, and then signal the future. Within the next three years, the division will introduce four rear-wheel drive models into the finicky European market, compared to one front-wheel drive cars, the Seville, today.

LeMans is "high risk, but it gives us an opportunity to show a new face for General Motors and Cadillac," said Herb Fishel, executive director of GM Racing. "We've always been realistic. LeMans is not an event to kid yourself about."

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