Yesterday was the big day for GM to show the world that its Cadillac CTS-V is the mac-daddy and can beat anyone. Well, there was one thing that was very interesting; a 2008 E90 M3 was faster than Bob Lutz and the journalists with their CTS-Vs…
Why is this so interesting? Well, as writers, most of us are good drivers. Some of us have also been to different driving schools and racing schools to learn how to drive better. An average Joe, while they can, most don’t go to driving and racing schools. Maybe Michael Cooper, the pilot of his M3, is different. Who knows if he has been? I surely don’t. Well, with that said, he showed up to the CTS-V Challenge at Monticello in New York and posted a lap time much faster than the non-professionals driving the CTS-Vs. It took two professional racing drivers, Brian Redman and John Heinricy (Heinricy is also the man behind Cadillac’s V program, and GM’s current performance cars, at that) and a chief test engineer for the CTS-V to beat Mr. Cooper.
Together they pulled out faster lap times by .828, 1.522 and 3.864. While 1.5 and 3.8 seconds are monumental in the racing world, I’m shocked to see a regular person actually make it that close. Imagine if it had been Bill Auberlen driving the M3? He’s already proven he can take an inferior car and be not much slower than a CTS-V.
I know this may sound like BMW fanboy crap, but I assure you, if you look at the facts, it shows you something much more meaningful. Think about it, BMW offers a car out of the box that makes you damn near as fast as real racing drivers, compared to the CTS-V
*Edit*
So, with journalistic integrity a big value to me, a friend brought it to my attention that I didn’t post up information about the CTS-V being cheaper than the M3. Which, that’s what its main job is; be a performance value over the German cars, especially BMWs. So I went and built a brand new, 2009 E90 M3 from BMW and went and built a car with as identical of options as I could find with the CTS-V. Now, I know what you’re going to say, “You built the CTS-V with safety, first aid and tools. You didn’t do that for the BMW!” Well, that’s because the BMW comes with those things standard. As well as a 4 year/50,000 mile warranty service that has all of your maintenance built into the price of the car already.
-Josh
“Happy Motoring!”
