The face of General Motors' widely-lauded Performance Division would be a different sight if it weren't for John Heinricy. An executive and development driver, Heinricy started his career with GM nearly 40 years ago, and along the way he's had a hand in developing the Citation X11, the original CTS and its newer V-variant, the Corvette Z06 and the Cobalt SS among many others.

Among his achievements as a driver, Heinricy counts 11 SCCA Runoffs road-racing victories to his credit, many achieved in the tough T1 class, but the most recent won in 2007 behind the wheel of a Cobalt SS in Showroom Stock C (SSC). Another badge of honor is the record Nurburgring lap time for a production sedan at 7:59.32, claimed with the aid of the Cadillac CTS-V.

John Heinricy

John Heinricy

Though Heinricy has worked throughout GM on a wide variety of high-performance versions of the company's cars, the folks at Cadillac consider him one of their own according to the official blog. His races as a guest driver for Team Cadillac in the Speed World Challenge GT series have gone a long way to cement his relationship beyond his role as a development engineer.

Even as Heinricy leaves GM, however, his legacy will live on. As part of the motivating force behind the recent rebirth of Cadillac as a world-class luxury and performance marque and GM's overall renewed push for more worthy performance vehicles, enthusiasts will reap the rewards of that influence for years to come, as will fans of competing brands that have been forced to step up their game or be left behind.