Cadillac
The Cadillac CTS-V Coupe packs a 556-horsepower Corvette-based V-8 under its tumescent hood and behind its glowering chain-mail chops. A dream list of enhancements — to the frame, aerodynamics, suspension, steering and brakes — let the CTS-V storm the curves and tracks with the best of its class.
The result is the sort of fun you seldom get in an American automobile not named Corvette. In fact, the Cadillac wallops its Chevy stablemate in some quarters. The Cadillac’s precise steering is more sensitive, which is helpful not just on a track but wherever trees or ditches threaten.
That made the Catskills terrain of upstate New York a outstanding test location, both for its forested byways and for the 4.1-mile track at Monticello Motor Club, where Cadillac parks several CTS-V sedans for use by track coaches and club members. The CTS-V has a second forested home at the 12.9-mile Nürburgring race circuit, where a great deal of its development work was realized — and where the four-door model became the first production sedan to destroy the eight-minute lap time, as Cadillac’s advertising will readily remind you.
Point the V coupe and hit the gas, and it will eat more rubber than a roomful of harrowed SAT test-takers. The Cadillac blasts to 60 m.p.h. in 3.9 seconds, and the 6-speed manual-transmission version will hit 191 m.p.h. (the 6-speed automatic is curbed to 179).
But the automatic’s 12-m.p.h. top-speed shortfall isn’t the main reason that enthusiasts might choose the manual type. First, in lieu of steering wheel paddles, the auto-shifted Caddy entombs wobbly plastic buttons in back of the steering wheel. The Cadillac’s automatic may occasion slightly faster track times, but it’s gaga in the real world, ignoring instant shift requests until the engine smacks off the rev limiter. The manual, in comparison, is smooth and precise.
The Cadillac’s other problems are seats and weight. Car and Driver weighed the Caddy at a class-crushing 4,260 lbs, 650 more than the BMW M3 coupe at 414-horsepower.
To its performance virtues, the Cadillac hides its bulk as if it were wrapped in a neatly laced corset, but that kind of weight handicap can’t be masked entirely. That load also plays a part in the Cadillac’s premium-grade guzzling of roughly 10 to 13 m.p.g.
CTS-V Coupe customers are confronted with less than optimal seating. The standard seats are chary on lateral support and the optional Recaros — which, as a rule guarantee a fine time for all — are unnecessarily rigid and restrictive. However, what the standard coupe surrenders to practicality in pursuit of style is obviously forgivable in a car designed as a meth junkie’s pipe dream. Sedan or coupe, when you punch the CTS-V you’re answered with a kaleidoscope of colors as if you’ve just exited the gate on the back of a bodacious, spinning bull. Starting price is $62,990.
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