It's a common practice in the industry for an automaker to take part in racing championships. As well as automatically increasing the cool factor of said automaker, it also allows them to produce special road-going versions of their race cars, which ultimately end up getting a lot of demand and become very valuable.
Despite some of their hiccups over the years, even General Motors have taken part in a variety of racing championships. They took tons of victories, and they are responsible for some of the greatest race cars of all time.
10 Cadillac Northstar LMP
This marked Cadillac's first attempt since the 50s to enter LMP racing in the early 2000s. The end result was this rather shapely race car powered by one of the worst engines in all of General Motors' history.
Despite the Northstar calamity, this car did surprisingly well on the track - it also looked rather good. It got a couple of podium finishes, and it managed to stay in the top 10 for most of its racing days. Sadly, GM canceled the project and put all their focus towards the Corvette program.
9 Chevy Monte Carlo SS NASCAR (90s And 00s)
This Monte Carlo SS is one of the most successful NASCAR cars in all of General Motors' history with the championship. In the 90s, Sterling Marlin and Jeff Gordon took the Monte Carlo SS to victory, with Gordon's being a highlight of NASCAR in the 90s.
Then in 2004, according to Mecum Auctions, that exact Budweiser Monte Carlo SS was used to win the Golden Corral 500 in Atlanta in 2004, where it was driven by now-retired Dale Earnhardt, Jr. The rainbow and the Budweiser Monte Carlos have gone down in history, and Chevy made special editions of the road car to commemorate both these drivers.
8 Chevy Monte Carlo SS Aerodeck
The 90s and 2000s wasn't the only time Chevy's Monte Carlo killed it at NASCAR. There was also the 80s seasons, and that was mostly thanks to the Aerodeck rear end. The standard Monte Carlo's simplistic design wouldn't have done it for the NASCAR downforce requirements.
So, a special rear windshield was engineered, making the air more streamlined over the rear end and keeping the car more stable at speed. The results spoke for themselves; this car took Dale Earnhardt to his third title and it scored 11 wins during the 1987 season.
7 Holden Commodore V8 Supercar (VF)
V8 Supercars is the most coveted, popular and watched motorsport in all of Australia, so naturally, Australia's own Holden is a key participant in the series. Well, they were, until General Motors decided to close up shop.
One of the most successful Holdens in the series is definitely the VF generation Commodore, specifically the one from 2013 and onwards. The race car made waves everywhere when it hit the track, scoring over 100 wins and winning the Bathurst 1000 three years in a row. If you know anything about Australian motorsport, you'll know that's a big deal.
6 Chevy Corvette C6.R
One of the most instantly recognizable race cars of all time, particularly to those who played the original Need for Speed Most Wanted. As soon as the C6.R first came onto the racing scene, it was made perfectly clear that Chevy wasn't messing around.
Both the GM-owned Corvette Racing team, and the private teams that used the C6.R managed to score many, many wins. It was built alongside the regular C6 'Vette, making the engineering team's job a lot easier. The C6.R was so unstoppable, race teams used them even after the C7.R debuted.
5 Chevy Corvette C7.R
Immediately after the C6.R dominated racing series the world over, Chevy revealed the C7.R Corvette at the same time as the standard road-going C7. Though this would be the last front-engine R, it was definitely a good one.
Out of the 65 races it entered during its racing career, it achieved 16 wins, including the 2015 24 Hours of LeMans. That's quite a portfolio to have, both by the car and the drivers who raced it.
4 Oldsmobile Aurora GTS-1
This is certainly an interesting one. The Oldsmobile Aurora is the last car we'd expect someone to make a race car out of, but it was still a cool car. That's exactly what happened, however. General Motors had a lot of faith in it, so much that they supported some of the GTS-1s that competed.
It looks very cool, and it's wearing a pretty badass livery too. Though it wasn't as successful as some of the others, it did manage to win the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1996, and it also won the 4 Hours of Sebring race.
3 Chevy IndyCar
Chevrolet has been supplying engines to the IndyCar series since 2012, and it turned out to be one of the best things they've ever done. Since their engines began their work powering these shapely race cars, the wins came flying in.
We're talking over 83 pole positions and 73 victories. That would be plenty for just about any manufacturer or race team, but it doesn't stop there. This thing also went on to win three championships and six consecutive manufacturer titles. That's a pretty impressive list.
2 Chevy Corvette C5.R
Before the C6.R and the C7.R, and indeed the coming-in-fast C8.R, the first in the R line of racing Corvettes was the C5.R. Like all of its descendants, this car enjoyed a lot of success too.
Out of the 55 races that it entered during its run, it won 31 of them, and it had 50 podium finishes. That's 50 podium finishes in the 55 races that it competed in. We think that safely qualifies as a successful race car.
1 Cadillac DPi.VR
Though this is one of the more recent efforts in terms of GM race cars, the DPi.VR is making a lot of noise, literally and metaphorically. It marked the return of Cadillac to prototype racing, and what a return it was.
It looks really good, for starters. Cadillac's design language somehow works incredibly well with this prototype body, and the numbers speak for themselves. 600 hp, just over 2,000 lbs and skilled drivers took the DPi.VR to 14 wins and 11 poles.
This is just a fraction of the great race cars that General Motors have produced over the years. With the new Corvette C8.R arriving fast, it's the dawn of a new era of GM race cars. Let's hope they keep the legacy going strong.