2005 Cadillac CTS Test Drive

Scorching Caddie

It's not just a BMW fighter--this Caddy is built to challenge all comers.

No, really, just do the math and you'll see what we mean.

The 2005 Cadillac CTS-V we just test-drove retails for $49,300. That's a far cry from the mere $31,700 you'd spend for the stock CTS, but General Motors sells a pile of those cars for every single CTS-V they make. And the work they have to do to kick out a V edition of the CTS must be taxing, to say the least.

Consider: The CTS-V gets a Corvette-derived, 5.7-liter V-8 good for 400 hp and 395 ft.-lbs. of torque. That's way more guts than the stock 255-hp V-6 -- the CTS-V has the gumption to race to 60mph in just 4.6 seconds, according to Cadillac.

But this car is about more than just extra red meat under the hood. The CTS-V has a six-speed manual gearbox, four-piston Brembo brakes, Goodyear Eagle F1 245/45 run-flat tires on larger, 18-inch wheels, performance shocks, springs, stabilizer bars and braces, totally unique ground-effect cladding, two distinctive front grilles, its own instrumentation, audio system, seats and standard heating to both the front seats and the outside mirrors.

In other words, the CTS-V has its own drivetrain, its own interior, and its own face for a mere $20K more. And they'll only sell a few thousand a year, versus at least 50,000 V-6 CTS vehicles. So we just can't see how Cadillac can be making much on the V cars.

But we do understand why they're bothering.

See, Cadillac would like to beat BMW and Mercedes-Benz at their game -- oh, and Nissan's Infiniti brand as well as Toyota Motor's Lexus as well. But to do this, they need to create cars that are really coveted. Cars that not only don't need incentives to sell, but that people will actually pay ABOVE sticker to have. That's what both BMW and Mercedes have going with their (respectively) M and AMG vehicles. Audi, too, gets more money when it releases a passel of S-edition vehicles on our shores.

So for Cadillac to ever get to that point, they have to jump into the freezing-cold waters of world-class sports sedan competition and swim against all the other big sharks. And they have to sell such cars for less, because they don't yet have an established customer base for this kind of car (retirees in the Sun Belt aren't shopping for this sort of Caddy). Moreover, it tends to give cash back or offer cut-rate financing to get customers in the showroom door, which leads to charging less than the competition for similarly sized high-performance cars from Germany and Japan. Still, the CTS-V has some advantages. To find out what they are, read on.