Cadzilla! Meet the fastest, most powerful Cadillac ever built
By Angus MacKenzie
Photography by Wesley Allison, the manufacturer
This is it. The fastest, most powerful Cadillac ever built. The fastest, most powerful American sedan in history, for that matter. Locked, loaded, and gunning for Europe's heavy-hitting sport sedans-BMW M5, Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, Audi RS6. Read all that again. Now pinch yourself. No, you're not dreaming. Motown -- well, GM at least -- has its mojo back. Meet Cadillac's monster new CTS-V. Cadzilla, if you will.
Here are the raw numbers: 550 horsepower at 6200 rpm. 550 pound-feet of torque at 4000 rpm. They're only official "estimates," but as the engine under the new CTS-V's power-domed hood is fundamentally the same as the supercharged V-8 that's credited with 620-plus horsepower and at least 600 pound-feet in the hot new Corvette ZR1, you can safely assume the real SAE-certified figures will be close. "I'm confident we'll disappoint nobody with the numbers," says Ed Piatek, the CTS-V's program engineering manager.
There are no performance figures yet, but by way of context, AMG's E63 Benz nails 60 mph in 4.3 seconds. The new CTS-V weighs about the same and has at least 43 more horses and 85 pound-feet more torque. Draw your own conclusions: The car also has been extensively tested on the legendary Nurburgring Nordschliefe, and while insiders are tight-lipped on the actual lap time -- for now -- they will admit Cadzilla has terrorized factory hotshoes from Munich out on the daunting 13-mile road course. "People who've never been passed by a Cadillac have now had that experience," smiles Piatek.
Piatek works for the GM in-house hot-shop, High Performance Vehicle Operations, headed by John Heinricy, and was the man tasked with overseeing the transformation of the COTY-winning CTS into Cadzilla. He had good raw material to work with: Unlike the previous model, the new CTS was engineered from the outset with the high-performance V-series model in mind, with extra stiffening and strengthening built in. "That was a lesson we learned with the first CTS-V," says Piatek. "If you start with this [idea] going in, there may be a small mass penalty on the base car, but there's less cost and tooling needed to do the V."
As a result, the basic CTS body structure is little altered. Most of the changes that have been made-mainly around the front and rear suspension cradles and the suspension links-are purely to handle the much higher cornering loads induced by the specially developed 19-inch Michelin Pilot Sport 2 tires and the prodigious torque output from the engine. On that last point, everything rear of the front transmission flange has been beefed up. There's a larger-diameter prop shaft, and asymmetric halfshafts (one side is a 55mm-diameter unit, the other 35mm) to help reduce wheelhop under full power launches).
Supercharged 6.2-liter V8 is closely related to Corvette ZR1 engine and pumps out 550 horses and 550 pound-feet.
Suede-like finish on steering wheel and shifter, Recaro seats, black trim. CTS-V cabin means business.
First Look: 2009 Cadillac CTS-V
By Angus MacKenzie
Photography by Wesley Allison, the manufacturer
This is it. The fastest, most powerful Cadillac
ever built. The fastest, most powerful American sedan in history, for
that matter. Locked, loaded, and gunning for Europe's heavy-hitting
sport sedans-BMW M5, Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, Audi
RS6. Read all that again. Now pinch yourself. No, you're not dreaming.
Motown -- well, GM at least -- has its mojo back. Meet Cadillac's
monster new CTS-V. Cadzilla, if you will.
Here
are the raw numbers: 550 horsepower at 6200 rpm. 550 pound-feet of
torque at 4000 rpm. They're only official "estimates," but as the
engine under the new CTS-V's
power-domed hood is fundamentally the same as the supercharged V-8
that's credited with 620-plus horsepower and at least 600 pound-feet in
the hot new Corvette
ZR1, you can safely assume the real SAE-certified figures will be
close. "I'm confident we'll disappoint nobody with the numbers," says
Ed Piatek, the CTS-V's program engineering manager.
There
are no performance figures yet, but by way of context, AMG's E63 Benz
nails 60 mph in 4.3 seconds. The new CTS-V weighs about the same and
has at least 43 more horses and 85 pound-feet more torque. Draw your
own conclusions: The car also has been extensively tested on the
legendary Nurburgring Nordschliefe, and while insiders are tight-lipped
on the actual lap time -- for now -- they will admit Cadzilla has
terrorized factory hotshoes from Munich out on the daunting 13-mile
road course. "People who've never been passed by a Cadillac have now
had that experience," smiles Piatek.
Piatek works for
the GM in-house hot-shop, High Performance Vehicle Operations, headed
by John Heinricy, and was the man tasked with overseeing the
transformation of the COTY-winning CTS into Cadzilla. He had good raw
material to work with: Unlike the previous model, the new CTS was
engineered from the outset with the high-performance V-series model in
mind, with extra stiffening and strengthening built in. "That was a
lesson we learned with the first CTS-V," says Piatek. "If you start
with this [idea] going in, there may be a small mass penalty on the
base car, but there's less cost and tooling needed to do the V."
As
a result, the basic CTS body structure is little altered. Most of the
changes that have been made-mainly around the front and rear suspension
cradles and the suspension links-are purely to handle the much higher
cornering loads induced by the specially developed 19-inch Michelin Pilot
Sport 2 tires and the prodigious torque output from the engine. On that
last point, everything rear of the front transmission flange has been
beefed up. There's a larger-diameter prop shaft, and asymmetric
halfshafts (one side is a 55mm-diameter unit, the other 35mm) to help
reduce wheelhop under full power launches).