Autoblog Senior Editor Seyth Miersma has the track at Road America all to himself to test Cadillac's most powerful sedan, the 640 horsepower CTS-V.
TranscriptSEYTH MIERSMA: Road America comprises 4 miles, 14 corners, and more than 60 years of US racing history. Study its course, and you'll discover a carousel in a kink, a straight in a sweep, a hill in a valley, and enough tunnels and bridges to make a New Yorker feel at home in rural Wisconsin. And today, I have it all to myself.
This is the 2016 Cadillac CTSV. The newest version of Cadillac's most powerful sports sedan boasts 640 horsepower, a top speed of 200 miles per hour, and a close kinship with the brutal Corvette Z06. If that specification gets your heart thumping, congratulations. You're in good company.
But specs don't turn corners. I'm going to put shoe leather to throttle and decide for myself.
Up the hill and onto the straight. It is a truly remarkable experience. If there's one place on all of Road America where you really feel all 640 horsepower-- that's a ridiculous number, by the way. I'm still getting used to saying that. It's climbing that L and watching the speedo just click off.
Coming up through the Corvette tunnel up the hill, there's a lot of traction, but still, it's sort of a slow corner. And it's one of the many here that I think are really showing me how good the electronic limited slip differential is. The car coming out of the slow corners-- I mean, first of all, it's just really competent and quickly turning in and getting set up. But then the power is just there seamlessly, kind of instantaneously. Not a lot of jutter, no hesitation.
I was telling some of the guys, I mean, if I didn't know any better, I would almost be convinced that I was driving an all-wheel drive car coming out of those corners. A lot of that is down to the diff, and a lot of that is down to these substantial and crazily engineered tires that we're riding on.
Now, that's just a little bit past where Cadillac wanted me to brake. They've got a braking zone set up for caution. But I've been doing a lot of laps today. And though I'm no racecar driver, I know that these Brembo brakes have a lot more to them. I could definitely brake later if I were just a little bit more courageous.
You guys can see that I'm sort of alternating between using the paddle shifters for the eight-speed automatic and just letting the car do what it wants to do on its own. Frankly, I feel the same way about the CTSV as I did when I tried this transmission in the Corvette and the Z06 Corvette.
It's fast. The programming learns, and it learns quickly. And I'm wasting time thinking about the gear that I want to be in relative to letting the car shift on its own. I mean, overall, at these speeds, I have to say that the car really has a fairly natural character. I know that there are a lot of electronic magicians underneath the hood and behind each wheel that are really helping me do everything as quickly as I am.
But nothing seems intrusive. It does, essentially, kind of make me feel like a better driver, as the old cliche goes. Its bad habits aren't overlapping with my bad habits at the very least. And when a car compensates for where I'm slow, that's just when I start to falling love with it a little bit.
It's not delicate like a Miata going around the track, for sure. But there are moments mid-corner where I'm just a little bit surprised at what this car is able to do. We noted when we were driving on the roads around Elkhart Lake that you definitely hear the overcharge in the car. There's no question. Even if you're driving it not that aggressively, you can definitely hear the whine. So you really have to either be the kind of guy that likes supercharger whine or doesn't. But man, if you do--
Iron brakes hear from Brembo. I just haven't felt any fade. Ooh! God, that carousel is fun. In fact, what you guys are seeing me do right now is at least one more lap that what my cameraman wanted me to do. So hopefully those SD cards hold out. Hell with him.
Precious few people are going to drive this car on the racetrack when they actually buy it, and that's a damn shame. I'm telling you right now, 2016 CTSV buyers, get your asses out to Wisconsin. Do a track day at Road America. Love your life.
So following a time-honored tradition of both racecar drivers and racing spectators, I've left the track, and I am at the bar. I'm here at the Lake Street Cafe in downtown Elkhart Lake, relaxing a little bit after more laps at one track in one day than I've ever had in my entire life.
It's rare that you get a combination of a really great car and a really great track. And it's especially rare, especially for a journalist, to have that happen in a situation where I don't have to share at all. So it's fantastic.
I'm Seyth Miersma without Autoblog, and I'm not driving anymore.
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