Short Take Road Test
Hyperbole and downright dishonesty are, sadly, common—and distressingly effective—in marketing of all sorts. You can’t breathe MacBook Air, and most of the awe has faded when it comes to Wonder bread. This tendency toward untruth is just as evident in the automotive industry as anywhere else. Take, for example, the Mercury Grand Marquis (we suppose “‘Mediocre If We’re Being Really Nice’ Marquis” would have sold poorly, too) and the Cadillac CTS sport wagon.
But hold on. Although the workaday CTS sport wagon might be counting on a liberal definition of the word “sport,” check out the numbers for the V version: 0 to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds, 0 to 100 in 9.7, and the quarter-mile in 12.6 at 116 mph; braking from 70 mph to 0 in 155 feet; 0.88 g on the skidpad; and a top speed Cadillac says is right around 190 mph.
Don’t Ask Questions, Just Be Grateful
Figures like these raise two questions: “how?” and “why?” “How” has an easy answer: through the fitment of all the same pieces that make the CTS-V sedan and coupe so great—556-hp supercharged V-8, magnetorheological dampers, Brembo brakes, and 19-inch Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 rubber—to the wagon. “Why” is similarly easy to answer, although slightly less illuminating: We have no flippin’ idea. Cadillac doesn’t really seem to know, either. Sales projections are, um, conservative.
Like the Bugatti Veyron, the CTS-V wagon makes no sense. Also like the Veyron, it is awesome. We can’t say it enough: It’s a 556-hp station wagon. With the rear seats up, your Bernese mountain dog lords over 25 cubic feet of cargo space; fold the seats, and the Berner annexes an additional 33 cubes.
Who Put a Cap on My Sports Car?
This wagon doesn’t just put up sports-car numbers; it feels like a sports car, too. The steering is progressive and communicative. The chassis, with weight redistributed toward the rear a touch (compared with the coupe and sedan), is balanced and extremely obedient.
And then there’s the standard manual transmission—in a station wagon! (Buy now: Cars so equipped will be this generation’s Hemi ’Cuda convertible.) The clutch is linear and the shifter light, although both are slightly too much so for those in the office who like a little fight with their hairy-chested performance. The bawdy V-8 thrusts the car toward the horizon at a blurring rate that seems capable of stretching the roofline of the V sedan into a wagon silhouette entirely on its own. We wish only for a scarier snarl from the exhaust—and for the coupe’s center-mounted double-shotgun setup.
Speaking of the coupe, several staffers consider it less attractive than the five-door. Park them side by side, and the wagon looks svelte and elegant compared with the coupe’s ample rump. And although years of BMW M5 have dulled the shock of a superstar sedan, the extreme rarity of the V wagon’s only competitor—on our shores, at least—the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG wagon, makes this one of the most novel cars on the road today. Car and Driver has a lengthy and well-documented fetish for true sport wagons, and internal discussions about creating our own CTS-V wagon project car were already under way when Cadillac announced it would save us from ourselves and add this model to the factory roster.
Honest Delinquency
This car is the embodiment of the C/D ethos: It is fast, fun, and practical. And considering it can haul the family, the bacon, and an afternoon’s Home Depot binge with equal ease—not to mention the fact that it’ll be among the collector cars in 30 years—its base price of $64,290 is arguably reasonable. Everything about the CTS-V wagon feels like a sports car, but a glance in the rearview mirror reminds the driver that he is in a sport wagon. Ladies and gentlemen, raise your glasses to truth in advertising.
