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9:50-10:15 am // Cadillac Launches CTS-V High-Performance Model, Leading Product Blitz

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Cadillac Launches CTS-V High-Performance Model, Leading Product Blitz

DETROIT – Cadillac plans to fight out of its current U.S. sales slump largely on the backs of a raft of upcoming new products that will begin with the CTS-V high-performance version of its mid-size sedan that made its world premiere at the North American International Auto Show 2015.

Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen said that the brand will introduce eight all-new vehicles by 2020, five in segments where the brand currently doesn’t have products. That will require an investment of about $12 billion, he said.

CTS-V is the first fruits of the product renaissance that de Nysschen, Cadillac chief since September, plans to oversee, and it was developed under the auspices of General Motors Executive Vice President of Global Product Development Mark Reuss. It is the third “V” high-performance version of a Cadillac model that has been introduced in the last three months.

Cadillac’s CTS-V boasts 640 horsepower and 630 lb.-ft. of torque and races from zero to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, with a top speed of 200 mph, all provided by a new 6.2-liter V8 engine. Features such as multiple heat exchangers tend the engine and feed the speed of the machine while it is also tuned to optimize downward air pressure at high speeds to keep it close to the road.

CTS-V also sports the third generation of GM’s magnetic ride control technology which, Reuss said, electronically “reads” the road beneath and reacts to its particulars “in milliseconds.’

CTS-V is the most powerful car in Cadillac’s history yet, as Reuss stressed, provides handling dynamics and inherent luxury that make it a great car to drive anytime. “Very few vehicles can achieve that kind of speed and still be comfortable as a daily drive,” he said.

Reuss also boasted about the capabilities of CTS-V’s high-performance – yet standard – brakes. “BMW wants you to pay $9,000 for a brakes package before you can take their M5 to the track,” he said. “Not so with us.”

Overall, de Nysschen acknowledged Cadillac’s poor year in the United States, where sales declined by 6 percent in 2014, while they rose globally by 5 percent thanks largely to surging growth in China. He blamed U.S. woes largely on Cadillac’s lack of vehicles in two key growth segments in the market: compact sedans and compact SUVs.

But Cadillac now is “well on our way toward recapturing our position of pre-eminence,” he said.