Yahoo Finance Le Mans: Automakers 'seize global exposure' and younger buyers with endurance racing
Cadillac: We see younger, more affluent buyers with racing-inspired products.
The 24 hours of Le Mans, considered one of racing’s holy trinity of events alongside the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indy 500, is always a special event. The 100th running of the race this past weekend was even more spectacular.
After a 50-year absence, Le Mans legend Ferrari (RACE) returned to the race and stunned with an overall win in the top-flight prototype “hypercar” class over the dominant Toyota Gazoo Racing team (TM), a remarkable accomplishment given Toyota had won the overall title the past five years in a row and was figured to have another dominant car. Global brands like Porsche, Stellantis’ Peugeot (STLA), and GM’s (GM) Cadillac also returned after an absence, with Cadillac snagging third place on the podium (as well as a solid fourth place with its second car).
Endurance racing started at Le Mans and continues to this day — and it's not just because the fans love it — it’s important to the manufacturers. Not only does winning on the racetrack help get excited customers into showrooms, but it also builds an automaker’s brand and prestige. Toyota announced new plans to launch a hydrogen-powered racecar at Le Mans, Ford (F) unveiled its new Mustang GT3 racecar, NASCAR and GM brought a special Camaro racecar to race in the experimental class, and even Rolex decided to reveal a special edition 24-hour Daytona Chronograph watch at Le Mans.
Signifying its importance, automotive leaders like Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda, GM CEO Mary Barra, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavarez, and Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna were all at the race this weekend. The number of private planes taking off and landing at nearby Le Mans airport over the race weekend was constant.
It's because the business types and of course the race teams all know the same thing — racing heritage can’t be bought, it must be earned. That’s why the companies are all here at Le Mans, hawking new wares and new tech as their factory teams compete for on-track glory.
“It's the pinnacle of all sports car endurance racing and, you know, so many other organizations and tracks have tried to replicate what happens at Le Mans, but it's just never gonna happen,” said Rod Emory, owner of Porsche vintage customization shop Emory Motorsports, known for the Outlaw 356 build, told Yahoo Finance.
The new film “Racing With Giants: Porsche at Le Mans” celebrates Porsche’s success at Le Mans and features a car Emory restored — the first Porsche ever to win its class at Le Mans. It’s the car that put a young upstart Porsche on the map back in 1951 — and has solidified its endurance racing credentials ever since.
“[Le Mans is] the perfect platform really for the kind of automotive testing and development, and also kind of the center stage of motorsport, in my opinion,” Emory said.
The return of Cadillac
It’s the kind of stage large enough to bring GM’s Cadillac back to Le Mans too. Cadillac last competed in the top-flight prototype class at Le Mans back in 2002, and just returned with three hypercars this past weekend, with the No. 3 car snagging that hugely important 3rd place on the podium.
“I think that it was the right opportunity for Cadillac to seize that global exposure through the WEC (World Endurance Championship) program,” said Laura Wontrop Klauser, general manager of GM Sportscar Racing, to Yahoo Finance. “We are going to be racing in various countries in Europe. We're also going to Japan, Bahrain, the cars are in the US, of course, so it's spreading that exposure to the markets and really letting the world know what Cadillac is all about, which is phenomenal performing vehicles with new technology.”
That technology includes a hybrid system mated to an internal combustion engine, in this case, GM’s naturally aspirated 5.5L V8. The hybrid V8, as opposed to most of the hypercar contenders' turbo-charged hybrid V6s, is an imposing-sounding powertrain that thunders across the racetrack.
"One of the key elements of the V-series (Cadillac’s high performance and racing cars) is sound and having an experience, and one of those elements for the highest form of racing here is to race with a V8, and that's been in our history since the 1920s,” Brandon Vivian, Cadillac’s chief product engineer, told Yahoo Finance. “We design the sound into all of our V-series products, whether it's CT5-V Blackwing [sedan] or an Escalade V, and the race car all have a very familiar note on purpose.”
While sounding good and putting out nearly 700 horsepower is hugely beneficial for sales, it also turns out racing is helping Cadillac attract new fans, improve sales, and get those all-important younger buyers into the showroom.
“We started V-series [20 years ago] with a race car and we absolutely see a younger buyer — we're anywhere between 12 to 14 years younger with the V-series buyer and more affluent,” Vivian said. “And we also see that they're really interested in technology and performance.”
Vivian believes racing provides the opportunity to expose potential customers, especially younger buyers that may not have considered Cadillac, to really demonstrate and show those buyers "very visually what Cadillac is all about."
“It's been a transition here over the [last] 20 years of where we race, but why we race is still critical to V-series, [and] bringing in those younger customers has been very successful here with our sub-brand,” Vivian said.
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Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter and on Instagram.
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