Tag Archives: cadillac

Design Police wave Cadillac CTS on through

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The Car Design Police blog has a thoughtful blog post on the Cadillac CTS redesign in 2008.  I am mainly a function over form person, but I do appreciate a detailed analysis of design elements with explanations, rationale, and examples.  Very well done opinion piece.

I also love seeing the Allante advertisement that they use to start the article.   This reference because the Allante, designed by Pininfarina, was arguably a clean design.  It was definitely the 1990s-Cadillac-chic look and not the current approach.

Overall positive review:

But after seeing them on the road for a while, the latest CTS is actually a very nice design. It maintains the Art and Science aesthetic but is fuller and more dynamic than the previous CTS or the XLR.

but I would still like this type of analysis even if it were not positive. I know what I like, but not always why. This type of discussion can help educate all of us on what works and why we like it.

C&D test shows 2009 Cadillac CTS-V Outraces the Competition

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Car & Driver via Autoblog — Car & Driver runs an annual event called the Lightning Lap.  They get the fastest cars in the world together, and run them all on the same track under similar conditions and publish the results.

This year they included the 2009 Cadillac CTS-V in the mix.  How did the new high performance Cadillac do?  Amazing.  Check the details.  The new Corvette Z51 won for under $60K; but the CTS-V posted the 2nd highest times in the event for vehicles under $60K, and 6th highest overall of 22 performance cars!  Go Cadillac!

Remarkable thrust from the LSA [The Cadillac CTS-V has an LSA engine] with no hint of the angry bull bellow that afflicted the previous CTS-V. Remarkable, too, is its six-speed manual gearbox, providing precise shifts and crisp engagements. Remarkable balance, allowing the driver to drift and pivot this big sedan with ease. Remarkable brakes, offering formidable stopping power without a hint of fade, lap after lap.

The BMW M3 came in just behind the new CTS-V, followed by the Mercedes C63 AMG.  Not sure why the new Corvette ZR1 was not in the test.

The Cadillac did 0.92g’s in the first section; have to love that.

2009 Cadillac CTS-V Supercharged Performance

2009 Cadillac CTS-V Supercharged Performance

I know, 6th. But the first five were the Mosler MT900s, Dodge Viper SRT10, Ferrari 430 Scuderia, Nissan GT-R, and Corvette Z51. Very fast company, and none of them have four door, four seats, and Cadillac luxury.

Corvette ZR1 LS9 engines making the numbers

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The Corvette Blogger via Jalopnik reports some independent chassis dyno results for the new 2009 Corvette ZR1 supercar.    Now the LS9 supercharged 6.2L V8 in the Corvette ZR1 is not identical to the LSA 6.2L supercharged V8 in the new CTS-V.  The one in the Corvette is hand built and hardened a bit compared with the more production engine in the CTS-V.  The Corvette makes 638hp, the CTS-V 556hp.  The Corvette has a larger supercharger at 2.3L vs 1.9L for the Cadillac.  But it is interesting to see how the Corvette engine performs none the less as a ruler for where we might see the CTS-V perform.

Results?  The average chassis dyno was 548hp.  With tuning the shop was able to get them up to around 567hp.  At 15% transmission/drivetrain loss, the 548hp matches up well enough with the claimed 638hp of output at the crankshaft.   Put another way, 548hp represents 14% drivetrain loss which is in the expected range.

Hopefully we will see the CTS-V manuals put up similar numbers, hitting around 475hp on the chassis dyno.