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The world's greatest automotive executive?
In one of the boldest, high-profile and just plain awesome automotive publicity stunts, General Motors marketing czar Bob Lutz (pictured) is about to attempt to prove the Cadillac CTS-V is the best sports sedan in the world.

How, you ask?

Lutz has thrown down the challenge to anyone willing to race him on the track to see which four-door sedan is the fastest. Called the CTS-V Challenge the contest came about a few weeks ago when GM launched its new 'May the Best Car Win' campaign.

Lutz takes up the story.

"We have a lineup of vehicles that we think, if given a chance, can stack up with the best the rest of the automotive manufacturing world has to offer," Lutz wrote on the GM Blog. "One of the examples I cited was the Cadillac CTS-V, and I went so far as to challenge the journalists to find a stock production sedan on the planet that could outperform the CTS-V on the track.  I proposed a track duel, "run what ya brung," at a time and place to be determined."

It didn't take long for American automotive website Jalopnik.com to take up Lutz's challenge. The website will send its road test editor and a Jaguar XFR to take on Lutz, a former Marine, fighter pilot and amateur race car driver.

But with Jalopnik onboard and the Monticello Motor Club circuit booked for October 29, Lutz has now thrown the competition open to anyone in North America willing to step up to the plate.

GM has launched a website where interested parties can apply to compete. The only rules Lutz is insisting on is that the car must be a four-door sedan in the same competitive segment as the CTS-V and be in standard factory trim (no aftermarket modifications).

But that's it, determining the winner will be easy. Participants will be able to run five laps of the track in upstate New York and the fastest time wins.

Win, lose or draw Lutz has already achieved a large part of what he set out to do by getting people to think about Cadillac in a new light.

"As I said in the previous chat, we're going to take away every last excuse people have not to consider our products,' Lutz continued on the blog.

"We know that some consumers still think Cadillac cars do not have the top-end performance they believe the German luxury cars have.  The development objective of the 556-hp Cadillac CTS- V was to create the world's best high-performance sedan.  In final testing, the car lapped the legendary Nurburgring in 7:59.32, fastest ever for a production sedan (recently eclipsed, reportedly, by Porsche Panamera). 

" In other words, we believe we have achieved our goal of building the world's fastest sedan, but I look forward to putting that theory to the test... and may the best car win."

Audi Australia's time at the top over already
On Monday Audi Australia's Sydney headquarters, the Lighthouse, will officially lose its title as the world's biggest Audi dealership.

Instead that honour will pass to a dealer in the Great Britain, West London. Taking six years to design and build, the seven story building covers 17,651 square metres, pipping the Sydney Lighthouse at 16,400 square metres.

The dealership incorporates three showrooms, two basement levels that incorporate the workshop, parking and two floors that operate as a business centre.

"In its scope, size and complexity, West London Audi is like nothing we've built before. It is 100 times more complicated than a normal retail centre," said Jeremy Hicks, director of Audi UK. "The sheer scale of this project is very emblematic of the increasing significance of Audi not only in the UK but globally."

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