May the Best Car Win - Part Quatre

May the Best Car Win or the CTS-V Challenge was an exciting Twitter moment this past Thursday, it was cool to have such an event on Twitter powered by a myriad of Social Media participants.

The excitement was palpable!

Hopefully this event is the green shoot that will encourage other events in the same vein with more manufacturers participating.

Now that the dust settled...and everyone had an opportunity to express their opinions and thoughts. Fascinating spectrum of opinions from the blogosphere.

Here are our thoughts.

• From the outset when Jalopnik challenged Bob Lutz we thought it was bold and cool!
• Bob Lutz / GM were gracious in accepting the challenge, and using Social Media to communicate the challenge...its gives auto bloggers enhanced credibility and exposure.
• We at Strada were excited, yes we still think that it was very cool, and naively believed that procuring proper iron was not going to be a big deal (for Jalopnik that is).
• By the time GM / Cadillac came out with the "ground rules" (the 8 pages of legalese) in subtle fashion it was raising hurdles for other manufacturers to openly participate through bloggers. 
• Monticello is the chosen venue, convenient its close to several Head Offices of other manufacturers just in case they wanted to participate. 
• The end result, a few privateers participate with the automotive blogs stuck in a vacuum to procure credible iron. 
• Like a good street race there is posturing, all sorts of verbalising, usually of the nature that mine is bigger than yours...its expected, and good fun. In addition to a ton of "bench racing" in the blogosphere.
• On the chosen day, last Thursday you have to expect that CTS-V besides being a fast car will win, reminds you of "good ole boys" having some fun. GM made sure they were playing in their "sandbox" (the legalese).
• To make it safer a chicane is created in the straight, its an advantage for the challengers, and Cadillac immediately spins that "The CTS-V is chained down".
• Congratulations to all the folks that showed up with their personal cars, very cool, they certainly had a memorable experience.
• Michael Cooper with the M3 is the real winner, and who is this guy?
• Bob Lutz at his stage in life (being twice the age of most participants) did extremely well, Bob walks the talk its totally cool. He might be the best thing that happened to aging Boomers.
• GM was ready for anything and everything, and when the "shooters/ringers" started playing the CTS-V's were going even faster.
• Perhaps this challenge will impact the burnouts, these days any performance car can do burnouts, lets see what they can do on the track. 
• Is there a format that would encourage other manufacturers to participate, there should be, and it would be fun. 
• When any manufacturer promotes its high performance sedans, in an environment where the potential of these cars is beyond the street or highways. It follows that it migrates to the track, and manufacturers should encourage track activities (beyond the track days to promote their high performance models). 
• It follows that what used to go down at drive ins, goes down on a track.
• From our perspective everyone that participated is a winner, the CTS-V is fast, Michael Cooper is very fast, we all know which manufacturers should have had iron at Monticello.

How do we do one of these in Canada...Mosport....St.Jovite?

To quote Bob Lutz: It was a great day for the CTS-V, and an exceptionally fun day for me. I’ll have to issue another challenge so I can do this again sometime soon, although I wish I had started doing these when I was younger!

Our friend from Twitter @CarGuyDad who was at the Challenge has an impressive photo gallery on his blog....take a look.

Comments

[Chris Baccus]

I still laugh at how Cadillac loaded the deck with all of these ringers. I thought it was Bob vs. the challengers. On that criteria, it's M3 1st. CTS-V 2nd.

BTW, I'll be taking a look at how the buzz of this event did. Some early numbers I looked at last night showed the M3 had the biggest bump in Buzz and Michael Cooper had the great % bump in buzz; though, that's because there wasn't much Michael Cooper buzz before this ;). Overall though, the CTS-V had some great coverage and it extended to the NY Times and NPR's All Things Considered radio show. It was definitely a marketing win for GM with some great lessons for others.

[Strada]

Chris,
I would enjoy seeing this on a regular basis,where a few manufacturers get together to have their customers, and their "ringers" have fun with the performance versions of their products. Not to decide an outright winner, to enjoy some "friendly rivalry" and create buzz for all the folks involved in the event.

Manufacturers agree on who participates,we all know who they should be(manufacturers), Bob must have been a little frustrated with the glaring "no show", owners with comparable cars are invited put their names in the hat. A support infrastructure for each manufacturer, and a common area for all.