WORDS JONNY LIEBERMAN
I
believe I can be forgiven for my negative
preconceived notions going into this
drive. See, at our annual Car of the Year
brouhaha, we drove the non-V version
of the CT5. We did not like it. It was one
of the first cars we culled, and one that led
to almost every judge muttering a version
of, “What is Cadillac thinking?”
It’s not like we’re Cadillac haters,
either. When the CTS—one of the cars
the CT5 replaces—was new in 2014, we
named it our Car of the Year. But when it
came to the CT5, among the many things
we dinged it for were its “overworked
turbo-four engine” and “lackluster driving
dynamics.” Surely the upcoming V version
would be the CT5’s savior? We could be
forgiven for thinking, “No.”Riding on the second generation of
GM’s game-changing Alpha platform—
called simply Alpha 2—the CT5-V is
stuffed to its funny-looking C-pillar with
all sorts of go-fast GM parts. The 3.0-liter
twin-turbo V-6 makes 360 horsepower
and 405 lb-ft of torque. A performance
iteration of the 10-speed automatic
codeveloped by GM and Ford is the only
gearbox for now, though don’t act too
shocked if a six-speed manual shows up
for model year 2021. The fourth genera-
tion of MagneRide handles damping at all
four corners. Brembos do the braking via
the same brake-by-wire system found on
the new mid-engine Corvette. Traction
control is handled by GM’s PTM system—
that’s short for Performance Traction
Management. GM’s fiendishly effective
eLSD electromechanical locking differen-
tial puts the power down out back.Identically sized and vehicle-specific
Michelin PS4S rubber wraps all four
wheels, clocking in at 245/40ZR19. An
all-season tire is available, but as a Cali-
fornian I say, “Who cares?” For the first
time ever a Cadillac V product is available
with AWD, but the fine folks at Cadillac
are quick to point out that they’re talking
AWD for bad weather (whatever that is),
not as a performance enhancer. As such,
Cadillac claims the CT5-V will hit 60 mph
in 4.6 seconds, with the AWD version
coming in a touch slower.
Add this all up, and the CT5-V is
now Cadillac’s midgrade performance
car (think Audi S4, BMW M340i, and
Mercedes-AMG C 43). And a more
powerful, unnamed range topper is
coming. Will that future car (I’m guessing
it will be called something like CT5-V
Max) have the 6.2-liter supercharged V-8FIRST DRIVE I 2020 Cadillac CT5-V72 MOTORTREND.COM MAY 2020