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Cadillac just unveiled its contender for the 2017 IMSA season. It’ll be going up against Mazda’s stunning entry for the newly formed DPi Class, which means the upper echelon of Ameican sportscar racing just got a lot more sexy.
Out goes IMSA’s old Daytona Prototype and Prototype Challenge classes in favor of a combined class that lets manufacturers stretch their design muscles a little more. The idea behind the DPi class was to make prototype racing more relevant to the participating manufacturers’ road-going cars, unlike the LMP1 cars that race at Le Mans that bear absolutely no resemblance to any Porsche or Audi on the road (and definitely not a single Toyota). Hence the razor sharp edges and balled-fist look of the Cadillac DPi-V.R and the hand-sculpted curves of the Mazda RT24-P. But the road-car callbacks don’t end at the finely crafted carbon fiber. Sitting in the middle of the Caddy is a 600 horsepower naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V8 versus the 600 horsepower 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder in the Mazda.
Two vastly different, yet evenly matched cars competing in the same category should make for some great Sunday afternoon programming come January. Not to mention Nissan is expected to show up with a 3.6-liter V6-powered GT-R inspired car.
