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Against a background of Trump’s obvious contempt for NATO and the EU, General Motors and Ford are wooing car enthusiasts with European-based racing endeavours. GM’s Cadillacs are chasing Le Mans glory and its brand-new F1 team is making its debut in 2026, while Ford is back in F1, powering Red Bulls.

1950 Cadillac at Le Mans – John Lloyd

Ford’s Euro racing history is well known, thanks to its famous anti-Ferrari campaigns at Le Mans; its saloon racing pedigrees by Ford UK and Germany and the legendary F1 V8 engines it produced, so we won’t bother going into that. However, Cadillac’s Euro racing experience has been far less successful.

In 1949, in the post-War USA, Cadillac entered race-prepared coupes in the NASCAR Strictly Stock Division, powered by GM’s new 160bhp overhead-valve V8 engine.

Cunningham Cadillac Le Mans engine – Revs Institute

That powerplant in those coupes attracted the interest of a well-heeled racer, Briggs Cunningham, who wanted to compete in the 1950 24-hour Le Mans race. At that time, the Le Mans rules prohibited any internal engine modifications and the only fuel available was 80-octane-rated, so the big Caddy engine was competitive with Europe’s then best.

Cunningham brought two 5.4-litre Cadillacs across the Atlantic: one a standard Series 61 sedan and the other with an aluminium racing body, whose design had been refined using the Grumman Aircraft wind tunnel. 

Although standard mechanically, the two cars had three-on-the-tree manual boxes that were being phased out of the Caddy lineup, in favour of automatic transmissions. The streamlined car also had a non-standard carburettor.

The French had never seen anything quite like this pair and christened the coupe, ‘Petit Petaud’ (little lumberer) and the two-seat streamliner, ‘Le Monstre’’, which is self explanatory. Motor racing was more relaxed those days and Briggs Cunningham happily had those nicknames painted on the respective vehicles’ bonnets.

Also more relaxed were the safety run-off areas, so being sand-bogged after running off the track was a common occurrence and that’s exactly what happened to the two-seater that was stuck for around 20 minutes at one point. Hence, it finished in 11th place, behind the heavier coupe that came in 10th.

Alan Raine photo

Both cars are now lovingly stowed at the USA’s Revs Institute, but make regular public appearances. ‘Petit Petaud’ has ‘lumbered’ its way around the UK’s legendary Goodwood Circuit on several occasions, to much public approval.

Cadillac’s 21st century Le Mans attempts are getting more serious, with the brand finishing third and fourth in the 2023 race, and it locked out the front row in qualifying in 2025. However, victory at Le Mans eluded Cadillac once more, when the cars finished fifth and eighth in the race.

F1 commitments

Cadillac’s efforts to enter F1 have been well publicised and were successful only after ‘Andretti’ was dropped from the team name – and the payment of a US$450 million ‘entry fee’.

So, while Ford will be building engines for Red Bull Powertrains, Cadillac will initially have Ferrari-powered cars. GM-built engines are scheduled to appear by 2029.

“As the pinnacle of motorsports, F1 demands boundary-pushing innovation and excellence,” said Mark Reuss, president of General Motors. 

“It’s an honour for General Motors and Cadillac to join the world’s premier racing series and … this is a global stage for us to demonstrate GM’s engineering expertise and technology leadership at an entirely new level.”

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