Picture this.
You are offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ride in a race car driven by motorsports veteran, Andy Pilgrim.
You suit up, put your helmet on, and climb into the car Dukes of
Hazard style. The car is roaring and ready to go. But in a matter of
minutes a rain storm sets in. Ugh. Now it is too dangerous to ride on a
wet track with tires designed for dry conditions. So your trip around
the course is reduced to a quick ride from pit lane to the paddock.
Now 15 minutes have passed, and the rain has stopped. But your ride
in the race car still is not a go. Alternatively, a ride in the street
version of the car is offered to you.
Do you take it? Yes. Are you a little disappointed? Sure. Does it end up being the thrill of a lifetime? Absolutely!
That was my experience at the
Pirelli World Challenge Series in Detroit, Michigan when I rode in
Cadillac’s 2013 CTS-V Coupe.
120 mph on a wet street race track is not what I expected at all! Who
knew Cadillac, a brand known for luxury and comfort, has so much power?
Unless you are a racing aficionado, the Pirelli World Challenge
probably is not a motor sports series that is familiar to you. It does
not feature racings household names like Patrick, Gordon, or
Castroneves. But what the 24 year old series lacks in star power, it
makes up in performance.
The Pirelli World Challenge includes top of the line production based
cars with four separate classes competition (GT, GTS, Touring Car, and
Touring Car B-Spec). These race cars feature the same block and body of
the vehicles that you would find on the showroom floor. In other words,
there is a direct line from the manufacturer and aftermarket supplier,
to the consumer.
Cadillac Racing
competed in the series from 2004-2007, and due to the economic downturn
it took a brief hiatus. But the racing team returned in 2011 stronger
than ever. Since then its drivers Johnny O’Connell and Andy Pilgrim
finished one-two in the 2012 GT Driver’s Championship. And Team
Cadillac took home the 2012 Pirelli World Challenge Series GT
Manufacturer’s Championship on the one-year anniversary of its first
victory since rejoining the series.
2013 is shaping up to be another promising year for Team Cadillac.
Sales are up 38%, (Cadillac’s best start since 1976) and its racing team
is on pace to vie for another championship.
Forbes.com caught up with
Cadillac’s Director of Emerging Markets, Jim Vurpillat, at the Cadillac
V-Series Challenge in Detroit to talk about the
V-Series,
motor sports racing, and Cadillac’s quest to be the leading luxury and
performance brand. Here are excerpts of our conversation.
On the V-Series and Cadillac Racing
Vurpillat: Our involvement in racing is about proving the performance credentials of the brand. When we started to develop our
V-Series
brand with our first generation CTS it was about getting our toe in the
water, in that high performance category of BMW M and Mercedes-AMG, and
proving that Cadillac performance can take on the worlds best.
With the second generation of cars, we just upped the game. The
V-Series
has been phenomenal for us. We’ve built up a following, and we’ve built
up a great owner base. When we first got into it, there were a lot of
people surprised. Now, they know we are there, and we have built up a
lot of credibility.
On the similarities between Cadillac’s production cars and race cars
Vurpillat: One of the reasons why we got into this
form of racing is because it is production based. That body comes right
off of our assembly plant in Lansing, Michigan. It starts its life the
same way a production car starts its life.
The base engine is the same it is a 6.2L V-8. The one difference is
you can buy the production car supercharged. It produces 556 hp. The
suspension geometry all has to be the same. Basically, 80% of the race
car is production based.
On the economic downturn and its impact on Cadillac Racing
Vurpillat: We knew we were going to take a little
hiatus in racing because that was the gap in between the first
generation CTS family and the second generation. When we decided to come
back, we probably could have come in a year earlier and raced the
V-Sedan. But we thought it would be a good idea to race the Coupe. That pushed us into 2011.
The hiatus was the downturn and financial driven. As soon as things
started to get better, Mark Reuss said to us “let’s go racing.” We put
the race program together in about eight months, which is quick to build
a race car, test it, and be out on the track.
On Cadillac’s marketing strategy
Vurpillat: Our series is usually linked with a
bigger series, which is usually IndyCar. So we wanted to use that
opportunity to engage fans and performance enthusiasts; and educate them
about the Cadillac brand. The
V- Series is credible and takes a backseat to no one. There is a lot to do at our displays. We talk about the Cadillac
V-Series,
Cadillac performance, our race program, and get them excited about it.
Fans can come in and take ride in one of our simulators.
We have our
V production cars there and that gives us the
ability to attract fan interest. We take those leads and over a
six-eight month period we track conversions to sales. That is how we
determine our ROI with our investment on-site. On this program, we are
well over a 5:1 ratio on our investment to payback which is phenomenal
and off the charts. For us to be out on eight, nine, ten weekends with
that commitment and those displays, it is a few million dollars.
On the future of Cadillac Racing
Vurpillat: I see our racing program growing. There
is potential for us on a global basis and the possibility to race in
some select races in China, Middle East and Europe. We can start to take
what we’ve built here in the US as a series, and take that to some of
our other markets.
For us being in a production-based series, there is a lot of
excitement. The adage of race on Sunday, and sell on Monday is still
there. It might not be the Monday after or a month after. It might be a
year later. But it gets people excited and talking about it. What is
more is engaging than “here is my car, and then here is the car on the
track?”
BMW M, Mercedes-AMG, and Audi RS are great machines, and to have us
in that consideration set says how far we’ve come as a brand and where
we are going to continue to take it. For us it is a very simple
strategy, it is about building the performance credentials of the brand.
Racing falls under that. Our
V-Series falls under that. We
want people to think of Cadillac as performance and luxury. This is the
beginning of a long journey.
Courtesy of Forbes
