Cadillac
Cadillac was formed from the remnants of the Henry Ford Company. After a dispute between Henry Ford and his investors, Ford left the company along with several of his key partners in March 1902. Ford's financial backers William Murphy and Lemuel Bowen called in engineer Henry M. Leland of Leland & Faulconer Manufacturing Company to appraise the plant and equipment in preparation for liquidating the company's assets. Instead, Leland persuaded the pair to continue manufacturing automobiles using Leland's proven single-cylinder engine. A new company called the Cadillac Automobile Company was established on 22 August 1902, re-purposing the Henry Ford Company factory at Cass Street and Amsterdam Avenue. It was named after French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, who had founded Detroit in 1701.
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.