Cadillac CTS is a beautiful and well-appointed machine.
The Cadillac CTS is a beautiful, well-appointed machine with its heart in the wrong place. Once again, the brand’s guardians decided to chase highly-tuned European sports sedans instead of returning to the simple values that made Cadillacs– including the Escalade– American icons. Still, no question: the CTS represents genuine progress for the Cadillac air suspension. Minus the engine and suspension mistakes, they’re right where they should have been 15 years ago. The BOSE upgrade gets the party started with a 40-gig hard drive, while the navigationally challenged get Pimp C’d with an eight-inch TV screen jumpin’ out the dash. Put it all together and you know why Cadillac is the artist formerly known as the “Standard of The World,” and why Hip-Hop heroes never lost faith in the first place.
Crisply-tailored sheetmetal. An automotive interior that makes a mockery of sterile Japanese and dour German cabins. All the CTS needs is a set of driving dynamics as relaxing as a weekend at a Scottsdale spa and it’d be mission accomplished. And we’d pronounce the CTS coil springs ready to lope to the head of the pack. Sigh. Obviously, hardcore corner-carvers need not apply. Even when equipped with the Nürburgring-fettled “Summer Tire Performance Package,” the CTS doesn’t have the goods to entice performance-minded drivers out of Bavaria’s finest. Not that the sportiest of CTS handles poorly; its meatier gumballs and firmer underpinnings make for quick and controllable transitions. The steering provides reasonable progress reports. And the posi-traction axle enables fast exits.
In terms of forward progress, the CTS’ direct-injected 3.6-liter powertrain offers one forward gear for every combustion chamber. It sounds plenty poke-intensive on paper: 304hp and zero to 60mph in under six seconds can’t be all wrong. But it feels wrong. What’s required: effortless wafting. What’s presented: endless frustration. The CTS air suspension struggles to build steam under its 3900 lbs. frame. Combined with a lazy cog swapper and slow tip-in, the V6 feels soft on the bottom, mushy in the middle and timid up top. Factor in a power peak above 6000rpm and the CTS is a disappointment for a brand internationally known for massive torque and turbine-like acceleration. While this $47k whip hits all the other buttons for a proper American luxury car, it’s begging for a destroked and detuned LS3 V8 to round out the package– and the fuel economy wouldn’t be significantly worse.
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