Images copyright Greg
Cooper, Juha Kivekas,
Loren
Lins and Andrew Wong
Text copyright
Michael
J. Fuller
The
2002 Cadillac LMP is a clean sheet of paper design or nearly so.
The main carry over is the engine of course, but everything chassis side
is brand new. Nigel's brief from Cadillac must have been along the
lines of "design an Audi-beater".
The LMP02 was a massive step forward in that endeavor, though they still had their work cut out for them. Cadillac's perseverance showed in that they overcame their demoralizing Le Mans Test Days showing and turned in respectable times in qualifying for Le Mans '02. Though it still was clear that Cadillac's philosophy of cherry-picking the ALMS schedule hurt the program. The car needed race miles and didn't get them. To be successful, a chassis needs to be raced, not simply tested. Audi proved that to us. This "Audi-beater" needed to follow suit. In the end GM uncerimonsiously canceled the program at the end of 2002 stating their goals had all been met adding one more black eye to GM's fickle racing history. |
The
LMP02's concept rendering. |