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Friday, January 28, 2005 4:28 PM
2005 Cadillac CTS
By T. Q. Jones
We've tested German hot rods and even a few Japanese hot rods along with the newer American hot rods from Pontiac (GTO) and Chrysler (Chrysler 300 and Crossfire, Dodge Magnum). Rear wheel drive is back, and we're going to see more and more cars with rear drive and hot-rod credentials.
If you're surprised that one of them should be from Cadillac, you shouldn't
be. Cadillac realized about 20 years ago that they had a major problem: their
customers were getting older and not being replaced by younger Cadillac owners.
It was such an obvious trend that "younger Cadillac owner" is almost
an oxymoron.
Cadillac realized that if the trend continued, they'd have no customers. The
solution is to attract younger buyers who will become lifetime Cadillac customers.
But with an image already mired in yesterday, that was a tall order.
It still is, though Cadillac is getting better at it. Early efforts such as the Chevrolet Cavalier-based "small Cadillac" met with the resounding indifference they should have and served to prove Cadillac may have understood luxury cars, but they were clueless about small cars.
A few years ago, they tried importing a top-line Opel model from Germany as the Cadillac Catera. It was a pretty nice car, but didn't find a market in the U. S. In part, that was because customers weren't looking for European-style sedans on a Cadillac showroom; which is a continuing problem for Cadillac.
But they're trying. The Cadillac CTS is an attractive smaller Cadillac with
good performance, performance that was refined at the famed Nurburgring race
track in Germany. For the CTS-V, described as "the first model in Cadillac's
new V-Series line of luxury performance vehicles," they went back to
the Nurburgring.
The reason is that almost everything you do to make a performance car out
of an ordinary sedan (if a Cadillac can be described as "ordinary")
is kind by-the-book: more power, heavier springs and shock absorbers, harder
bushings in the suspension and steering, bigger brakes, wider wheels and tires,
and so on.
Getting all of that to work together is the real secret, and the hard part.
The crews in NASCAR all have pretty much the same parts to work with and
are playing by the same rules; but week in and week out, some get the balance
right more often than others, and those are the champions.
Sure, Cadillac built new front and rear cradles to handle the extra mass of
the LS6 engine up front and the added torque through the driveline in the
rear, bumped up the spring rates from the standard CTS by 27 percent, increased
the size of the sway bars, used stiffer bushings to take the play out of the
steering and suspension, hung huge four-caliper aluminum Brembo? disc brakes
on all four corners, and so on.
But it's how all this fits together and works together that makes the Cadillac CTS-V special and turns a 3,800-pound mid-size car into a responsive hot rod that feels like it weighs 2,500 pounds and goes like a bat. Consider: Cadillac put a race-prepared CTS-V on the pole at Sebring last spring, then backed that up by winning the race. A Cadillac? Winning races?
Yeah, well, actually, two Cadillacs. Cadillac CTS-Vs ran first and second in the race and has won again since, but the CTS-V was built to do that. Cadillac says its competition includes other low-volume luxury performance cars like the BMW M-Series, Mercedes-Benz AMG Series and the Audi S-Series. That's a tall order, but the CTS-V just might be in that class, and at a relatively low $52,495.00.
This one is spectacular. Its 5.7-liter, 400-horsepower aluminum V8 uses low-octane
fuel (premium is recommended, but not required, so we tested on low octane)
and pulls EPA ratings of 15 miles per gallon in the city and 23 mpg on the
highway. The CTS-V goes, stops and handles like a sports car or, even better,
a good sports sedan, as many of the modern sports sedans will outrun a sports
car.
Cadillac got the balance right.
The car is predictable, comfortable in both senses of the word and as responsive
as anything we've driven lately. The front and rear balance is skewed slightly
to the front, so adding a driver and passengers improves the balance, as does
the outstanding acceleration. All this performance, and real-world fuel economy
of 19 miles per gallon in town and 23 mpg on the highway.
Now, if only Cadillac can figure out how to get those Audi, BMW and Mercedes
buyers to set foot in a Cadillac showroom...
Oscars Nominations just in:
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