Senior Bigone, who occasionally goes by the name Bob Lutz, will be out to defend Cadillac's honor at the Monticello Motor Club, tomorrow. What's unclear is whether he'll strafe the competition after the race.
Senior Bigone rides again…and this just might be the most important race of his life.
Few automotive executives have done a better job of playing a Hollywood leading man than General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz. He’s been a Marine fighter pilot and a lifelong diehard motor sports fanatic. But not someone who sits in the stands cheering on his favorite team.
So, some years back, when a former employer advised Lutz he could no longer race himself, he simply invented a new persona. When the track announcer asked what to call him, Lutz scribbled down, “Senior Big One,” a reference to his towering height and ramrod posture. Lost in translation, Senior Bigone, pronounced Bih-GO-nay, was born, though some folks added a “d” near the end.
Well, Senior Bigone is back, and he’ll be taking laps at New York’s Monticello Motor Club, tomorrow.
Seems a month ago, the never-shy Lutz, now GM’s marketing czar, took personal his campaign to prove to the world just how good the company’s products are. He issued an all-call to the competition, betting Cadillac’s high-performance CTSv could beat the best the world had to offer, products like the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG or BMW M5. “Run what ya brung,” he declared.
Initially, it looked like Lutz would be running a series of grudge matches, but now, well, who knows…but more on that in a moment.
For those who aren’t familiar with it, the v – which Lutz says stands for “velocity” – is a tricked-out version of the midsize Caddy sedan, a Corvette-derived, supercharged 556-horsepower V-8 under the hood. Until recently, it held the record for a production car using street tires, lapping the legendary Nurburgring in an astonishing 7:59.32.
This is the second-generation CTSv, by the way, an a major improvement over the original version. It’s got the brakes and the handling to match the power. But could it really take on the best Europe or Japan have to offer?
“They’re taking a real risk,” asserted a senior executive with one of the company’s Lutz challenged – asking not to be identified by name and admitting he was skeptical about taking up the offer. “Even the best racers, like (Formula One legend Michael) Schumacher loose occasionally.”
But it turns out Senior Bigone may wind up winning without so much as scuffing the low-profile tires on his CTSv. The various German marques have backed out, as did Jaguar, which originally planned to let Jalopnik writer Wes Siler take Lutz on in an XFR.
Caddy spokesman Nick Twork says the race is still on and if nothing else, a number of private owners are still planning to throw down their own gauntlet with whatever they “brung.” For those unfamiliar with Monticello Motor Club, it’s a privately-run track, a couple hours north of New York, where the affluent and truly car crazy pay a six-figure annual membership fee to log track time, about the only way you’ll ever really reach the limits of today’s performance cars, such as the CTSv.
A pretty good racer, in his day, Senior Bigone is still a tough one to beat on a press trip when in his civilian identity as Bob Lutz. Whether he’ll walk away from tomorrow’s grudge match claiming victory now seems almost besides the point. He issued his challenge and everyone else blinked. Wonder how soon we’ll hear about that in a new General Motors ad?