(car wheels screaching)
- Let me ask you a question 'cause you're smart
and I respect your opinion.
How did a dusty or grampappy car brand
make one of the sickest burnout machines of all time?
And in the process, completely redeem themselves.
It came as a sedan, came as a coupe.
Turn down your friggen hearing aids daddy.
It came as the moost bad (beep) American wagon
of all time.
(engine revs) (tires screech)
Go tell pappy to hand you his crusty hankercheif
'cause you're gonna get a case of the mouth dripples.
This is everything you need to know
to get up to speed on the Cadilac CTS-V
(upbeat music)
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Now, back to the show.
A lot way happening in 2004.
"Baby Geniuses 2 Superbabies" was melting
all of our little hearts,
the New England Patriots had just won
their third Supor Bowl, Cobie likes that,
and suburban mall shoe retailer, Just For Feet,
closed it's doors forever.
It was a dark time.
But, in the wake of that darkness came
an unsupecting white knight,
rolling in on a four a wheeled steed,
destined to shine some light on sad people
all over the country, and what was that white knight?
Cadilac, and that four wheeled steed, the CTS.
(engine revs) (tires screech)
CTS was Cadillacs replacement for the Tera,
a German built sedan that looked like a Neon
and was shipped over to the US and rebadged as a caddie.
My step mom's mom had was.
She's my step Grandma.
You remember the advertisements,
it's the caddy that zigs.
- [Announcer] Catera, the caddie that zigs.
- The girl boys and girls at GM
wanted to bring the four door sedan
and making biz back to the US
and the CTS was the model to do it with,
and they did so with a frickin bang.
Priced as a compact but built as a mid size,
the new CTS aimed at taking some sales away
from similarly SPECT Beamers and Benzes.
It was also the first sedan from Cadillac
in a very long time to be offered
with a manual transmission,
the last one was the 1988 Cimarron.
Now this was perfect for those mommies and daddies
who wanted to roll to the gears after day
of doing grown up crap that sucks.
Like having kids.
It didn't take long, but like that creepy magician
who's at your best friend's 10th birthday party,
Cadillac had a trick up their sleeve.
Just one year after its initial model release,
the big guns were brought out
and a V8 was put under the hood of the midsized sedan.
Now, they called their new buffed creation
the CTS-V but it wasn't just any V8,
that would be lazy, instead of lazy
they decided to be crazy baby.
They took the powerplant out of the C5 Z06 Corvette,
a 5.7 liter 400 horsepower V8.
That's right, this pupster got the LS treatment
with 395 pound feet of torques,
you got cruising from a standstill to 60 in 5.3 seconds
and busted out the quarter mile in the high 13s.
This all new Cadillac wasn't what your grandpops
had in mind when he went to buy nana
a new round town cruiser.
Many a pappy almost gave their wives depends bottom attacks
when giving them a spin around the block.
(tires screech)
Built by the GM PERFORMANCE DIVISION for Cadillac,
the CTS-V was the first car in a series of V cars
that are still being built today.
The luxury muscle car built on American soil,
this new V took aim at the German built BMW M5,
Audi S6 and Mercedes AMG E-series.
After years of getting it's (beep) stomped
by them schnitzel boys, this ballpark Frank American
was ready to squirt some mustard.
(engine revs)
Four door Z06, as some called it,
had more than just a big beefy motor stuffed under the hood,
it got a Tremec T56 six speed manual transmission,
also from the Z06, they got independent rear suspension,
it got four piston Brembos with 14 inch rotors
and it got 18 inch wheels.
This car was the real freakin deal.
It was the talk of the town, and the belle of the ball.
The USA finally had an answer to the Varian boys
across the pond and that the answer was (beep) you.
Straight up, I'll give a (beep) about you guys. (beep)
So what do you say?
It looks (beep) sick too.
The body got a more aggressive look
with the stainless mesh grill and buff looking arrow stuff.
It made the car frickin chisel.
(engine revs)
Inside the V got a different instrument cluster,
got better seats and a very long, throw shifter.
Compared to typically early 2000s gm interior standards,
this one had a really, really nice interior.
And while it wasn't necessarily the fastest
of the bunch compared to other high performance four doors,
it did what GM wanted it to do,
it got fire blooded youngsters all hopped up
on the mothball brand.
This was the beginning of a new era for GM luxury cars.
Now, a foundation for this series of cars was laid,
and it didn't let down.
Case in point, a triparound the Nurburgring.
(engine revs) (tires screech)
The first gen CTS-V got around the 12.9 mile long course
in eight minutes 19 seconds,
now to put that into perspective
the M5 completed it in 8:20.
Considering GM's flagship Sports Car of the time,
the C5 Z06 did it only 20 seconds faster.
The big bulky four door V showed that it had some wings.
So let's say that you're a Beamer Boy,
you probably know that the M and M 3, 4, 5 whatever
stands for motor sport.
If you're an Audi file you know that S stands for sport
and if you're a Benz Baby,
I'm sure they know that AMG stands
for (speaks in foreign language).
The Germans brands have some meaning behind the naming
of their performance division,
so if you're curious what the V stood for,
it's not victory, it's not vet, it's not velocity,
those all would have been very cool
but the truth is that Cadillac hired focus groups
to research what letter they should add to the end
of their three letter namesake and V was deemed
to be both unique and elegant.
It's a very boring story but it's the truth
and a lot of times the truth is boring.
But, history is written by those with power
and since I have the most power baby,
from this day forward, tell your friends
that the V stands for vroom.
(engine revs)
O for CTS vroom was also the car
that marked Cadillacs returned to racing.
Now, you're like, what, Cadillac was in racing?
Yes, they were.
The v wasn't the luxury brands first race car,
going all the way back to 1949,
the guy named Paul Russo won
the Milwaukee 100 stock car race in a Cadillac series 62.
Now fast forward to 2004, the CTS-V racied
in the SCCA World Challenge GT Championship,
and the Four Seasons that it raised it won
the Manufacturer Championship, a Driver Championship,
10 overall wins, seven pole positions
and 36 podium finishes.
I just changed my mind.
The V now stands for victory.
Well the first gen CTS-V had a ton of upside,
it also had a few (beep).
The first being exploding differentials.
You don't want a differential exploding.
(engine revs)
Second, while the sports suspension used
on the car created great handling,
it was really, really harsh on everyday roads,
it created a very un-Cadillac feal,
but when you're tryna go after a younger crowd,
lush floating on cloud suspension isn't priority number one
so screw that.
I've ruined all of my cars with upgraded suspension.
Now finally, and probably most importantly,
the car was slightly worse than its competition,
it wasn't as fast, it wasn't as nice
and while it was still $20,000 cheaper,
people still notice.
So, playing second fiddle to the Germans
is not a thing that GM PERFORMANCE DIVISION wanted to do,
so they went back to the drawing board to step it up a notch
with a few goals in mind.
The first being a car with a little bit more.
I just need a friend.
Can you guys helped me out?
(phone rings)
- Mr. President.
What do you need?
- I need a car with a little bit more.
- More power baby.
- More poer baby.
- More power baby.
- I little bit more.
- More power baby.
- A little bit more.
(engine revs)
- [All] More power baby.
- More power baby, more power baby.
- [Man] Say more.
Power.
Baby. - Baby.
- Thanks, it's just not the same.
The kids were cute though.
And back to the drawing board they did went.
The second gen CTS-V came to the scene in 2009,
feeding those four door performance luxury fans
a similar power baby.
(engine revs)
This time around it got a supercharged 6.2 liter V8,
the LSA, building on the success from the previous gen,
Cadillac used a detuned version
of the Corvette ZR1's power plant with a 1.9 liter,
4-lobe, eaten supercharger,
the car busted out 556 horsepower.
(engine revs) (tires screech)
That's 40% more than the previous gen.
The new v vroom, from zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds
with a quarter mile time of 12.6 in a friggin Cadillac.
And while most other performance sedans
were limiting their top speeds to
(beep) I said it, 155 miles per hour,
the CTS-V didn't do any of that bogus baloney.
If you're feeling frisky, you can push this bad boy
up to 191 miles per, why?
I don't care, it's sick.
The new V also got Magnetic Ride suspension,
with a push of a button you can turn
your classic cloud riding grocery go getter
to a four door, hot rodding check machine.
Going back to our litmus test of performance,
the new CTS-V got around the infamous Nurburgring
in a blistering seven minutes 59 seconds.
Now, how good is that?
Well not only was it 20 seconds faster
than the previous one, at the time they set
the fastest lap at the Nurburgring
for any production sedan ever.
That's called a record baby.
Differential nightmares that plagued
the early first gen cars were now a thing of the past.
The new V got asymmetrical drive shafts connected
to a beefed up differential and rear subframe.
This new tougher rear end and subframe got rid of shuttering
and axle hop when taking off from a standstill,
and this was also the first time you can get a V
with an optional six speed automatic with paddle shifters.
You know your baby with Brembo brakes,
better cooling, an aluminum hood
and even more aggressive styling,
the CTS-V was a certified slapper back to back,
Sophomore albums better than the rookie one.
At 60 K, it was still $20,000 less than an M5
and $30,000 less than E63 AMG.
You can afford not to buy one.
The only thing that could make this new generation
be sweeter would be some body style variations.
Now second generation was the first time
that we got to see the CTS-V in coupe form and sportwagen.
The Corvette S-coupe and sportwagen on steroids,
widenned Cadillacs appeal to young buyers.
You can only get in the V wagon from 2011 to 2014
and manual versions of these cars
are at a premium these days, can't find them for cheap,
probably because it's the last time you'll ever see
a manual wagon from GM, or, honestly, most manufacturers.
In the true spirit of going bigger and better,
the third and final generation of the V
got a equipped with the most powerful production engine
ever offered in a General Motors vehicle.
The 6.2 liter supercharged LT4 put out 640 horsepower,
that's only 11 fewer than a Ferrari Enzo.
2019 marked the end of an era for the CTS-V,
in fact the CTS isn't gonna be available at all.
The V will live on in other future Cadillac products
but at least for now, it won't bear the CTS name.
Now we didn't even talk about the XLR-V,
the STS-V, or the ATS-V during this episode.
Now, if you're a daddy that's a fan of those buff caddies,
you have the CTS victory to thank.
- More power baby.
More power baby.
- More power baby.
I love you.