Yes, This Is a Cadillac: Meet the Project GTP Hypercar

You need to watch this trailer. No, I’m not talking about the new Game of Thrones, and certainly not the new Lord of the Rings or whatever the latest superhero Marvel has excavated happens to be. No, the most exciting trailer of the summer, as it stands, is from Cadillac.

Specifically, we’re talking about the Project GTP Hypercar, which Cadillac unveiled on Thursday with a minute-long video that puts the Batmobile to shame. But this car is very much real, even if it’s hard to believe it’s a Caddy. The prototype hybrid race car is set to compete in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2023, the latter of which includes the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

That means that while this year’s Le Mans, the legendary French endurance race, is set to take place this weekend, you’ll have to wait a year until we see Cadillac return to that competition. By the looks of it, it will be worth the wait; Cadillac hasn’t competed in the event for 20 years, but it’s been on a tear in IMSA, winning the series in 2017, 2018 and most recently last year in 2021 with its DPi-V.R. Now, the new Project GTP Hypercar will attempt to take their racing prowess to the next level, and it certainly looks like a superstar.

The car is being developed to compete in a new prototype class: LMDh, which stands for Le Mans Daytona Hybrid (the Cadillac will feature an all-new 5.5L DOHC V8 engine paired to a common hybrid system). As Road & Track notes, these vehicles will be able to compete in both IMSA and ACO (the organization behind the FIA WEC) races. Additionally, even though the Cadillac unveiled this week is technically a show car, the publication says it will remain largely the same when it makes its track debut at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, also known as the 24 Hours of Daytona, in early 2023.

But let’s be real, whether or not this race car — with its superhero-styling, forged carbon fiber, transparent fin and sweet vertical lighting — gets tweaked between now and then doesn’t mean much for the everyday driver. Well, it normally wouldn’t, except as Cadillac notes, “Elements of the brand’s heritage such as vertical lighting and floating blades are present throughout and connect the Project GTP Hypercar to the future of Cadillac.”

In other words, the reason this race car you’ll never get to drive is so exciting is because it offers us a glimpse of Cadillac’s future lineup which you most certainly will be able to drive.

Now let’s see if they can pull off something that no American automaker has done since Ford in the ‘60s: an overall win at Le Mans.