• by Karl Greenberg , May 10, 2011

Cadillac's global marketing director, Jim Vurpillat, was in town on Tuesday to speak at the Chowder Society's monthly meeting. The town in question is not Boston, although Vurpillat's mother (who lives in Chicago) is excused for thinking so. As far as we know, chowder is not a specialty at Sardi's, the famed Broadway bistro where the club holds its meetings.

Chowder certainly wasn't on the menu. Cadillac's racing program, however, was. Vurpillat told the gathered assortment of racers, journalists and people who looked as if they should have been wearing ascots that the brand is in the midst of a rebirth and that a major part of that is its V-Series, high-performance sub-brand, which the brand's new racing program will support.

"Our renaissance began all the way back in 2003 with first-generation CTS [sedan]," he said, referring to the company's initial design-centered "Art and Science" program to revise the brand. "The second-generation CTS in 2008 started us on the road of competing toe to toe with Mercedes-Benz and BMW as a performance luxury brand. It also set the stage to build a high-performance series going forward."

Cadillac now has V-Series versions of its CTS Coupe, wagon and sedan, as well as a V-Series SRX. Vurpillat points out that the new version of SRX went from ninth to second place (behind Lexus' RX crossover) in its segment in a year and a half. "We introduced it around the same time Audi introduced the Q5, and Mercedes the GLK, and since then the SRX has outsold BMW's X3 and X5 crossovers combined; and [Mercedes-Benz] GLK and M combined. The only vehicle we don't beat in the segment is the RX," he says.

He said the initial V-Series CTS was "pretty good," but not better than BMW's M5 or Mercedes-Benz AMG performance variants. "We knew we had to do more." The second-generation V has a huge 556-hp engine under the hood and does 0 to 60 in around 3.9 seconds. That, says Vurpillat, makes it the world's fastest production sedan. He says he doesn't consider Porsche's Panamera a sedan, but a 5-door. Since September -- at which point the lineup included the CTS V-Series Wagon, he says -- the sub-brand has outsold BMW's M3, M5 and M6 cars. Twenty percent of CTS sales are V-Series vehicles, "which is unheard of," he says, adding that sales of performance sub-brands are usually 13% of total sales of the model on which they are derived. "It's something we are very proud of."

The company had raced the CTS between 2005 and 2007, then departed the track when GM was in bankruptcy. Cadillac now races in the Sports Car Club of America Pro Racing World Challenge series, which stipulates that vehicles must be modified from production vehicles. "We take the body right out of the factory, make it out of carbon fiber and the body-style matches up to the manufactured car." The racing version actually has less power than the production V-Series, although it weighs a thousand pounds less.

Vurpillat says the company decided to return to racing for two reasons: it's good for technology R&D, and it's good for brand building. "It's a great way to change our image," he says. "We still get comments on Cadillac being 'floaty' and large. Racing disproves that perception. It shows we can compete with some of the best brands in the industry. And you have to beat them in the race, not just in sales and at dealerships."