Cadillac knows a thing or two about motorsports. The Cadillac Racing team has won the Daytona Hours four times in a row starting in 2017, and won the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship twice, in 2017 and 2018. Today, the luxury brand has announced plans to compete in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and Automobile Club de l'Ouest LMDh category in 2023. Its chariot will be a fourth-generation V-Series prototype, teased here for the first time in a pair of photos.
What you're looking at is Cadillac's next-generation race car, the LMDh-V.R prototype. We expect a full reveal in due time. Cadillac's ultimate goal is to compete for an overall victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
"For nearly 20 years, Cadillac V-Series has brought winning technologies from the racetrack to our performance cars on the road," said Rory Harvey, global vice president, Cadillac. "We look forward to continuing that heritage by competing in this exciting new chapter at the highest level of international motorsport."
The new prototype meets all of the specifications for IMSA and the ACO Le Mans Daytona hybrid endurance events. Like its competitors, the prototype rides on a standardized chassis, utilizes a hybrid system, and boasts a unique combustion engine and cool bodywork. The LMDh-V.R, like the previous DPi-V.R endurance race car, was built as part of a partnership between GM Design and Dallara.
Chip Ganassi Racing and Action Express Racing are also on board as Cadillac's partners. Expect to see the new prototype debut at the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona in January 2023. The racer's hybrid system will certainly serve as a testbed for future road models, though we're already well aware Cadillac will become an EV-only brand by the decade's end. That doesn't mean it will give up on high-performance V-Series models. Currently, there's the CT4-V and CT5-V Blackwing models, of which first examples for both were sold out in a matter of hours.
More recently, Cadillac introduced the Escalade-V, though we're still waiting to hear what's under the hood and how much power it produces.