Okay, we've seen our two super sedans in the straight line yesterday. Today we're at the EVOC, Emergency Vehicle Operations Center in San Bernardino California, where the sheriff department does a lot of its pursuit training. We are going to run a road course with both, the CTS-V and the M5. These two are amazing similar. In fact, they both run on the same Michelin Pilot Sport tires. We are going to take them out and see which one beats the other in hot laps.
Well, I am here in the BMW M5 now. We have set up a road course here at the Emergency Vehicle Operations Center or EVOC in San Bernardino, California. The sheriff's department does a lot of training out here. This is my first lap on the course so just sort of feeling my way around here for this first tentative lap, very tight right hander here. Scott Motara has already run his hot laps and come back with times. That's going to be an interesting corner very bumpy. You can feel the V10 nice and torquee coming out that turn, hard left hander here and a hard right hander, and I can already feel what Scott was saying about front end washing out a little bit.
Although the power seams to stay quite planted in the rear, down to first gear for this very tight right hander, just up at the third here down at very fast sweeper coming onto the long right hander, down in the second and we'll take it for a hot lap.
Hard on the roads, down at second gear very tight right hander, easy to over drive this corner, right on the race again, easy to round at the safe edges, tight left hander quick squirt in the power, still on second gear on to the super stroke back straight over here, down to first gear for this very tight right hander, little bit step out there in the rear, even though we have got the dynamic stability control on, it's actually quite subtle and is quite fast steeper upto 75-80 miles an hour coming around little bit curvier this time, although it we up-scaled the track and not so lot, it's quite stable point.
Okay, now I am out in Cadillac CTS-V. It has 56 horse power or more of course and Scott said that the front end turned in a little better than the BMW, although he reported, he has a trouble to keep in the rear end, planted on the ground which with all this power is not surprising. Already, I can feel as we begin our warm up lap that the front end does bite more impressively than the M5. I am not even using that much power yet but I can feel that it turns in quite sharply. I can also feel how much power I have under my right foot just a little bit too much throttle and I am already kicking into the competition mode or the StabiliTrak system.
Alright, this thing really, really gets up and goes. I am not thinking to go down to first gear for this very tight corner I can feel I won't need it, and I don't, very fast sweep here I can say that I am going to want a short shift through here because I don't want a shift at the red line alright at maximum lap through that corner. So we'll shift early coming through the final right hand sweeper here on to the main straight and we'll take a hot lap in the CTS-V.
That power is just terrific, really tilts your head back. Hard on the brakes down in the second gear, very tight here, you got to be jumping with the power, so you got rear end stepped out just right away. It's a little loose coming over that bump.
Hard on the brakes again, second gear left hander, and a quick right hander and onto the short front straight away, see I am having to correct under the throttle down to a very tight end coming around, again short shifts are worth. All I can see over the rear end stepping out even hasn't come through the chassis. Wow it's a lot of power, hard on the brakes and stepping out here, under the brakes with that so much grunt, and down on the car, back on to back straight and this will complete a hot lap in CTS-V.
Well, as we run our road course laps, now as we expected it's very close. In fact just like yesterday, the cars are only a couple of tens apart this time in a lap but just like yesterday again the Cadillac CTS-V has a very slight edge. The cars are very different how they approach the handling course. For instance, the BMW front end tends to wash out a little bit while the rear end is very planted. The Cadillac in contrast is exactly the opposite, the front end turns in very crisply, has a lot of grip but the rear end with all that power is all over the place and with StabiliTrak off the CTS-V is real handful but also a blast to drive. So road course win, goes to Cadillac CTS-V by air.
So after crunching the road test numbers, running hot laps and driving both cars back to back on public roads, it's our unanimous opinion that the winner is the Cadillac CTS-V. There is no doubt that the BMW M5 is a magnificent automobile and there are things that that has head shoulders above the Cadillac such as the interior just has muted, expensive feel the Cadillac shiny, more plastic interior just doesn't share.
The BMW also feels just a little bit more planted around the race track, might have a little bit more of expensive feel on the road but it costs thirty thousand dollars more than the CTS-V, and you cannot ignore the fact that the Cadillac is quicker on a straight line. It posed quicker hot laps on the race track and it's just a balder drive in general. 556 Horse power for around $60,000, the Cadillac CTS-V from Motown is the easy winner over Munich.
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