2009 Cadillac CTS-V Road & Track Test Review

CTS-V Photos

Cadillac's never built a car like this. (Photo: Cadillac)

Cadillac has designed a track car. (Photo: Cadillac)

Of course, it was bred on the track. (Photo: Cadillac)

Yippee! There's not much than can keep up with a CTS-V... (Photo: Cadillac)

...except for another CTS-V. (Photo: Cadillac)

Gorgeous, well-made interior. (Photo: Cadillac)

Into fourth at the exit of the fast left behind the paddock and hold flat onto the downhill straight. Fifth at the clubhouse and still flat to the braking markers (Brembo 6-piston fronts and 4-piston rears, whew), then through the quick fourth-gear left and tight second-gear right. The big V8 crescendos to a muffled roar as we snick third into the first right-hand sweep and fourth through the second one. These guys have picked all the good pieces. The Tremec 6-speed is slick and precise and the twin-disc clutch is light in feel and heavy on grip. A line through the smooth left bend and back into the right angle right turn at the top of the longest straight. Third will do the corner using all of the pavement from the left berm to the red and white curbing at the right-side apex for the maximum exit velocity. The longest straight is not quite straight and going flat in sixth across the right bend halfway down realigns your priorities, just stay with the conservative line and the car settles beautifully and you thank the Recaro (classic choice again) design team for letting the seat work with not hurt. At the bottom of the long hill, the straight sweeps into a fast right before a slow, tight uphill left-right chicane. Once clear, it’s up through the gearbox and on through a couple of flat-out kinks to the hairpin that includes a pit entry. You just played the fastest eighteen holes ever offered on a country club — in a Cadillac.

Yep, country club. Sticks not necessary, balls a measurable advantage. A Nürburgring record-holding sedan is a purpose-built option — its Cadillac badge is standard equipment. The CTS-V is one of the finest long distance drivers you will ever experience, and its ability to deliver course records will soon be legend on motorhead clubs around the country. The Monticello Motor Club was not created by Thomas Jefferson and has no affiliation with the University of Virginia. But based upon what we know of Mr. Jefferson’s enormous energies and eclectic—and carefully nurtured—tastes, his dna is clearly in the atmosphere of the latest car nut country club for type A overachievers. The 650-acre park includes a 12-configuration racing circuit with 4.1 miles as its longest course and membership is open today. From Manhattan in 90 minutes by car or 25 minutes by helicopter and the Sullivan County Airport is 10 minutes from the club and accommodates private jets. The luxury automotive lifestyle resort awaits your call.

Cadillac can now deliver zero-handicap rounds today. It has taken five years to go from the first generation CTS-V’s surprise performance to the 2009 edition’s Nürburgring-accreditation and two out of three Speed GT championships. Is century-old Cadillac serious about raising their corporate scores and winning top echelon players? You bet!  FIA licensed John Heinricy is the lead development mind. Most of the engineers on his team are SCCA racers, some with national championships; all must be tested to qualify as high performance Cadillac drivers. CADILLAC!! Got that!

The results are in: With a curb weight (with Tremec TR6060 manual 6–speed gearbox) at 4,200 pounds — that puts it in the mid-7 pounds per horsepower set; very impressive for a leather-lined luxury four-door sedan — 0-60 is up in 3.9 seconds and 12-second quarter miles show 118 mph. These are nearer hot rod numbers than the great Teutonic tuner rockets that are Cadillac’s principle targets.

As excited as we were about finding a Tremec 6-speed manual gearbox in a Cadillac, the GM developed 6-speed Hydramatic (with both steering wheel buttons and central lever) was the system used by John Heinricy for his under-8-minute lap of that legendary two-lane mountain road. The Nürburgring delivers at least 73 corners in its rapidly undulating 13 miles to get your dampers up to temperature. And the Magnetic Ride Control dampers, first introduced on Corvette then sold worldwide to some of the best carmakers we know—Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce just to name a couple, were unchallenged by their millions of altered settings (data input every tenth of a second) accomplished during that memorable lap. The CTS’s elegant double wishbone suspension at both ends is a not an inconsequential element of that capability. And the latest edition of the CTS structure permits predictable accuracy geometry, so, by extension, control at the limit. A holiday run across the TransCanada Highway might not challenge the V car’s MRC, but a quick run across the historic pave of Oldtown Montreal could make the system as much of an advantage as a lap of Monticello Motor Club circuit.

Concurrent with the joy of effortless usefulness of that suspension’s compliance (read: luxurious ride when asked) is the added civility of Recaro’s microfiber-surfaced seating for four. And while en route there is an infotainment system that features a 40-gigabyte hard drive, an advanced navigation system with a “pop-up” screen and Bose digital surround audio as well as factory-installed Bluetooth capability. The new interior is the equal of anything for quality of materials and detail fit and finish. A space-age sweep of dash-to-console integration equals best in class and the system function tools are intuitive enough to not require a two-volume set of instructions. However, your faithful scribe loved the European style instrument cluster in the first generation CTS-V, with large matching tach and speedo, much more than the new, and very GM down-market, deep plastic tubes with chrome edges. And they locate the big speedometer in the middle and the tach off to the left — as though it is less important. That may be fine in a commuter CTS, but not in anything wearing the proven credentials of a V.

Key to those credentials and astonishing performance numbers is an all-aluminum, supercharged and intercooled, 6.2-liter, OHV V8 GM calls the LSA. With different tuning, it is the same engine installed in the fastest Corvettes in history. For Cadillac it produces 556 horsepower at 6,100 rpm and 551 lb-ft of torque at only 3,800 – the CTS-V’s version of the LSA engine is the most powerful engine ever offered in Cadillac’s nearly 106-year history. It is, of course, offered in the only Cadillac ever to set a record lap of the Nürburgring, too.

“From the very beginning, engineers were cognizant of the role a high-performance engine plays in supporting the qualities customers expect in a Cadillac,” said Jim Taylor, Cadillac general manager. “The supercharged LSA engine delivers outstanding performance, but maximum power didn’t come at the expense of refinement or quietness.”

Cadillac’s 2009 CTS-V is a remarkable accomplishment and not the least of that is GM’s steadfast support of the division’s newfound image. Unfortunately, the new car has lost that authentic stainless steel wire mesh grill that was so much a part of the last edition’s perceived credibility. We are told that the new plastic recreation permits substantially more air to enter all of the various heat exchangers that live behind it. And that oversized historic shield and wreath live confidently in its center for all the “I wonder if…” folks who see it parked among the front row Europeans at the Monticello Motor Club.

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