2009 Cadillac CTS-V Review
Close to 20 years ago now that Cadillac made a conscious decision to stop just being an
old man's car and this will go down as the Zenith of that effort. It's the CTS-V for 2009. It
puts a little tiny number next to 0 to 60 but we also want to check the tech.
Now, even if you don't like the performance styling of this car, you got to kind of like the
hard, bad ass look inside; chrome trims in this piano black finish. It's a business-like,
really weapon-like feel inside the CTS-V. Hit that and peeky-boo! Here comes our
display. It's a good-looking one, nice and ample, a very well calibrated touch screen and
everything is up there from your navigation to your audio systems, traffic and weather.
Let's check them out.
First of all, our nav screen looks like so. It's a good one. This is the current generation
look for General Motors and it's been one of my favorites for a while. Nice things like
traffic data, street names are always easy to read. They've got a little bit of a white outline
around them, so they always stand out. You've also got a voice command system on this
for the audio media system and navigation destination. See? I'm just guessing there
because I don't carry a cheat sheet when I drive a car of the commands it wants to hear
and this one doesn't help me. You don't get those prompts on the screen that I like and
clearly, destination is not a term it wants to hear.
Our media system can digest CDs, MP3 CDs and as you can see, DVDs to watch video
when you're in park. And we also have a multiple device interface. That's this thing here
in the console that is basically aux jack and USB allowing you to hook up any number of
devices. The audio goes out through 10 speakers, Bose branded, 5.1 surround capable and
it has their center point technology, so it can create synthetic surround from digital stereo
sources. This whole system is based on a 40GB hard drive, 10GB of which available to
you for media or you can also pop a USB drive into the console jack giving you a nice
place for expandable storage that handles and displays really well.
And check this out. As far as I know, this is a CTS-only trick. I'm listening to an FM
station and I can hit the pause button right down here and look what happens. It pauses
live radio. It has a 60-minute buffer. It's always buffering whatever you're listening to in
terms of AM, FM or XM. So, whenever you want to pause, you can do it. A little bit of a
letdown on the backup technology. Put this guy in reverse, your movie goes away, yes
but no rear-view camera pops up. It's a little annoying because we got kind of a high
bustle on the back of this thing. Instead, we do have ultrasonic rear part detectors; that's
okay.
The engine is a big story in this car, 6.2 liter supercharged V8, 556 horsepower, 551 foot-
pounds, 0 to 60 in just under four seconds. Keeping that attached to the earth is a standard
magnetic ride control adaptive suspension. It has two modes, Tour and Sport. Our car has
the no-cost optional six-speed automatic with paddles. Annoyingly, the paddles don't
work, unless, you're over in the manual gate with the shifter. The standard six-speed
manual would have been more interesting. Underway, the boost gauge down there tells
you how hard the blower is working. And you can even pull up a G Force display on the
dash. No head-up display though like you might find on a Vette or even a Cadillac XLR.
Now recall, I said the CTS-V might be a Zenith of sorts for Cadillac. That's because GM
just mothballed the high performance division responsible for all the V-Series Cadillacs.
So, let's price this collector's item. Base is fifty-nine three with delivery. Navigation with
XM traffic, weather and that cool popup screen, twenty-one forty-five. The Recaro seats
will add another $3,400.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services