In a challenge for the ages, Bob Lutz, GM’s current Vice Chairman, and basically the man, helped to start an initiative entitled The CTS-V Challenge. It was to be an advertising campaign to go along with GM’s current ad slogan, “May the best car win”. It was to be held at the Monticello Race Track in New York.
Cadillac went on to have an open invitation to pretty much anyone. Lots of people signed up, not so many showed up. At first, Wes Siler, Road Test Editor for Jalopnik.com, had a Jaguar XF-R lined up. But at the last minute Jag pulled out… What a bunch of pansies! So then he secured a Mitsubishi Evo X MR. In the end, though, Bob Lutz beat the journalists. But, Maximum Bob got his ass handed to him by an unknown named Michael Cooper with an E90 M3. And because of this, it seems the real pros had to go out and try and beat the M3. John Heinricy is of course the creator of the CTS-V, Aaron Link is a chief test engineer who worked on the Cadillac CTS-V and Brian Redman is a world renowned former Formula 1 and Sportscar racer.
Jack Baruth is an editor for TheTruthAboutCars and Lawrence Ulrich is a writer for The New York Times.
Still, without a doubt, the Cadillac CTS-V is an amazing vehicle. I’m not trying to take anything away from it, but we all knew this would be a nice publicity stunt for Caddy. Good job by all of the drivers and their cars. Congrats to GM for their win. But, an even bigger congratulations goes out to Mr. Cooper for handing Lutz his ass in a far inferior BMW…
Here is a video of the contestants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFr_CHvL8DA&feature=player_embedded
-Josh
“Happy Motoring!”
[Sources: Autoblog, Jalopnik, Wired Autopia, Cadillac’s GM Blog]
[Photos taken from: Wired Autopia]
