FIGHTING ASSUMPTIONS CADILLAC'S FIRST REDEFINED V PUMMELS OUR EXPECTATIONS

I believe I can be forgiven for my negative preconceived notions going into this drive.

- JONNY LIEBERMAN

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 co-developed 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 generation 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 differential puts the power down out back.