Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac
Upon his arrival in America, La Mothe adopted his title after the town of Cadillac, Gironde in southwestern France. The city of Detroit became the world center of automobile production in the 20th century. William H. Murphy and Henry M. Leland founded the Cadillac auto company and paid homage to him by using his name for their company and his armorial bearings as its logo in 1902. Various places bear his name in America, in particular Cadillac Mountain in Maine and the town of Cadillac, Michigan.
Cadillac Northstar LMP
For the 24 Hours of Daytona, the first race of the year, Team Cadillac would debut their two cars. Alongside their Chevrolet Corvette teammates, the Northstar LMPs performed well early on, taking second and third in qualifying. During the race the cars ran on pace, although after problems they found themselves nearly 100 laps behind the leading grand tourer cars. Although one car suffered a gearbox in the closing moments of the race, both cars were classified as finishers, taking 13th and 14th places. This was followed by the 12 Hours of Sebring, which saw both Team Cadillac and Team DAMS would be entered, with Cadillac running two cars and DAMS one. The teams suffered some difficulties, with the DAMS entry breaking a clutch and one of the Team Cadillac entries being involved in an accident. However, the third Northstar LMP was able to finish the race and take an encouraging sixth place, although it was 29 laps behind the winning Audi R8.