2009 Cadillac CTS-V Smyrna GA

September 22, 2009   By Jon Alain Guzik, DriverSide Editor-in-Chief



2009 Cadillac CTS-V
DriverSide Overview
American luxury manufacturers like Lincoln and Cadillac have always catered to a different kind of clientele than their German counterparts. On this side of the pond, luxury means large, soft-driving cars that are as apt to induce a driving coma as they to get you to the country club. In the land of Lederhosen and Bratwurst, luxury means an unparalleled balance of brute power and luxe refinement. General Motors has started to realize that as the market ages, younger buyers that have grown up on German and Japanese performance sedans don’t take too well to buying land yachts that cruise around on cloud-like suspensions. There are people out there who want Corvette performance without owning a two-seater. They want heated leather seats, power everything, a high-tech nav system and the ability to carry the whole family – or just their bros – with them.  They want what their cousins in Europe get – powerful sedans that are just as comfortable devouring apexes as they are rolling down the interstate. To that end, Cadillac created the CTS-V. In this case, V stands for very, very fast. From its heinously powerful all-aluminum V-8 to its sinister exterior, the V oozes power – and does so while serving up all of the creature comforts that make the Cadillac brand top of the line. Think of it as a lethal new breed of American luxury.







What's to Like
This is the fastest, most powerful Cadillac produced by General Motors – ever (!) – which is a fact that the car is happy to remind you of. The supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 has a healthy rumble that brings a smile to our faces, and the Tremec six-speed manual transmission is a glorious thing to throw while hitting an on-camber slice of road. Similarly, the six-speed automatic doesn’t hurt our feelings, thanks largely to the paddle shifters and smooth gear changes. In fact, the CTS-V in its automatic guise set the fastest time ever for a production sedan on Germany’s Nürburgring Nordschleife, with a blistering time of 7:59.32. Think of that when you are stuck in rush hour traffic.

What's Not to Like
While we like the idea of a stealth bruiser, we would like a little bit more differentiation between the track-deadly CTS-V and the hordes of CTS s populating the local retirement center. To the uninitiated, it looks like just another Cadillac with some extra parts thrown on. We wouldn’t mind a little more flair – we said flair, not bling.

The Drive:
DriverSide Driving Impressions
We could do this all day long. Planting our right foot in the floorboard results in chirp of pain from the super-sticky Michelin Pilot Sport 2 tires out back before they bite hard, launching the CTS-V to 60 mph in just about 3.9 seconds. The sensation is unreal.

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