The 2022 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing Is a $110,000+ V8 Monster Sport Sedan

this is the 2022 cadillac ct5v blackwing and it's basically insane and not just because it's bright blue this has a supercharged v8 with 670 horsepower and 660 pound-feet of torque it's rear-wheel drive and it has a manual transmission it is the last of the ultimate old-school sport sedans and today i'm going to review it before i get started be sure to check out cars and bids which is my enthusiast car auction website for cool cars from the modern era right now with free listings you can list your cool car for free and auction it and sell it on cars and bids and we've had some great sales recently on cars and bids including this e34 bmw m5 sold for 20 thousand dollars this audi rs3 brought fifty thousand dollars and this tesla roadster brought over a hundred and fourteen thousand dollars a very special car and big money if you're looking to sell your cool enthusiast car from the modern era cars and bids is the place to do it and if you're looking to buy a cool modern enthusiast car check out cars and bids with daily auctions and great selection at carsandbids.com but let's talk ct 5v blackwing now for years cadillac's top performance sedan was the cts-v but now the cts is gone and it's basically been replaced by the ct-5 now there's a regular ct5v but it's sort of a mild performance sedan certainly no substitute for the old cts-v but now there's this this is the ct5v blackwing and it's got to be one of the last of its kind there's no turbocharged hybrid powertrain here instead you get a supercharged v8 with about 670 horsepower plus rear wheel drive and a standard manual transmission although an automatic is available of course performance is nuts this does 0 to 60 in 3.4 seconds it'll go over 200 miles an hour and it runs a quarter mile in the 11s but pricing is nuts also this starts around 86 000 and you add options you can easily get it over a hundred grand this car has a sticker price of about a hundred and thirteen thousand dollars for a cadillac that's big money but then you gotta ask just how many more manual transmission v8 powered rear-wheel drive performance sedans will ever exist again maybe not many maybe just this one and so today i'm thrilled to review this car first i'll take you on a thorough tour of it and show you all of the quirks and features of the ct5v blackwing then i'll get it out on the road and drive it and then i'll give it a dug score all right i'm going to start the quirks and features the ct5v blackwing with getting in and that means discussing the rather unusual key situation you can see bright blue car but bright red key which struck me as kind of strange and even more unusual cadillac also sent me a ct4v blackwing the review on that will go up in a couple weeks that was a red car with a blue key i thought there was a mistake or maybe they were playing a joke on me until i discovered the key color is intended to match the brake caliper color so you can see red key for this car matches the red brake calipers of this car same deal on that ct4 v blackwing blue key matches the blue brake calipers and it has nothing to do with the body color of the car so the key is a completely different color from the car but it matches the brake calipers a subtle little detail for the black wing and speaking of crazy coloring in the black wig let's talk interior oh you look inside you can see the seats are mostly black fine but they are trimmed in sort of a peanut butter beige also fine looks good but around the beige color you have white piping as you can see and around that you have red stitching so each seat has black beige white and red all in one seat all together and next to each other interestingly it pulls it off relatively well but it's certainly interesting to see nothing i've ever seen a four color seat before quite like in this car and here's another crazy thing about these seats there's a lot of carbon fiber in this car and i mean a lot in fact there are 9 300 worth of carbon fiber options in this car but the most noticeable carbon fiber item is the seats you can see on the back there's this carbon shell of these carbon fiber bucket seats like you get in a porsche very sporty and racy with little holes for seat belts it's all about performance in here except these seats offer a massage function porsche doesn't even allow heated seats in their carbon fiber bucket seats that would defeat the entire purpose of the sporty seats in this car you get carbon fiber bucket seats but they massage they have cooling and they have heating which i think is just so perfectly cadillac performance you want to be fast and carbon fibery but you also want people to be able to relax with a nice luxurious massage but anyway on to the rest of this interior and i gotta say this is a mix of fantastic and wonderful performance features along with typical general motors cost cutting i'm going to start with the performance features and i'm going to start with the manual transmission you can see the gear pattern on top is rather unusual it's like very tiny and this little metal medallion you can barely even make out where the gears all are but that's what they've used and a manual transmission is what they've used that's a big deal for this car now a 10-speed automatic is also available but the manual is the big news in part because the previous model cts-v didn't even offer a manual they've brought it back even in the face of manuals dying and going away in basically every other car it still lives on here at least for a short period of time i think they're trying to create a legacy and make the last true rear-wheel drive v8 manual performance sedan and they've clearly done it here impressive to see a manual in this car now around the gear selector there are a couple of interesting performance items worth noting one is a button marked rev match you press that you can see in the gauge cluster the gear you're in turns from white to yellow and then that obviously turns on the rev match function so when you go to downshift it automatically matches your rev to make for a perfect smooth comfortable downshift so you can start accelerating also around the gear lever you can see a switch here marked mode this allows you to cycle through your various drive modes and there are a few you can choose from there's tour sport track and of course like a low traction mode there's also a customizable one and you can go through those using this little mode switch here in the center console but if you want to instantly switch drive modes and go to your high performance mode that would be this button hanging off the steering wheel to the left marked v this big silver circle you just want to press it and when you do it puts on v mode in this car and you can see all of the different things that change when you go into vimo there are several different items all configurable that you can dial in and the car will immediately adjust to them the moment you put it in v-mode now the benefit of the v-mode button compared to the switch next to the gear lever with that switch you gotta cycle through various different drive modes to find the one you're looking for with the v-mode button you just press it with your thumb your hand never even has to leave the steering wheel and it happens instantly and then you're in v-mode your ultimate high performance mode so you can just take off and that's a pretty cool touch now you also have another cool performance touch on the steering wheel and that would be this little switch to the right of the airbag in the center here this adjusts your performance traction control settings and you can move this switch and you can see in the gauge cluster it'll go through various different modes that will increase or decrease the effectiveness of your traction control depending what mode you're in inactive is actually the normal setting that means traction control is on and fully functional but you can adjust through like wet or sport or even two separate race modes which i assume mostly turn off traction control completely which sounds terrifying to me in a nearly 700 horsepower rear wheel drive sedan but you can do it if you want if you really know what you're doing and that's controlled by that little switch on the steering wheel now speaking of the steering wheel one other interesting little performance item worth noting here at the very base of the steering wheel you have a little v badge and then below that it says 66-004 this is a little code 004 is the vin of this car the fourth ct5v blackwing built more confusing is the 66 at the start the first six is the model code for the ct5v blackwing i guess that's just like an internal code and the second six refers to the transmission the manual so all ct5v blackwing models with a manual will have their little plaque here start with six six and then the last three digits of the then and if you get an automatic it'll be six followed by something else and that's how you decode that little plaque on the steering wheel now speaking of other cosmetic items in this interior that are kind of cool like i said carbon fiber everywhere over nine thousand dollars in carbon fiber in this car and it's all over the interior the entire center console is carbon fiber looks very sporty over on the dashboard on the passenger side you have some carbon fiber same deal on the door panels and like i showed you already the backs of the seats are carbon fiber a lot of carbon in here like you would want from a performance sedan at this level you also have some nice subtle badging in this interior which i kind of like like this little v badge here in the center console on this small center storage slot you have to look for it to notice it but it's there reminding you what you have and this little black wing badge on the seat trim again very subtle you have to look for it but there it is also reminding you this isn't just a regular cadillac or even a regular v but a black wing and next up moving on to another item i like in this interior that would be the gauge cluster which is of course a full screen like it is in most luxury cars now it's very configurable this is the gauge cluster in track mode it's a little bit busy as you can see but there's a lot of helpful information here now on the left you can see a little readout of several different things temperatures your tire pressures that sort of thing over on the right you have a scrollable menu that has a lot of different options you can choose from it scrolls both left right and up down my very favorite is the v performance tab in this little menu which allows you to pull up a screen that will measure your 0 to 60 time or another one that will measure your g forces or there's also a lap timer in here all of which is pretty cool and speaking of lap timing in this car this v black wing is equipped with a performance lap time recorder that will not only record your laps on a racetrack for time but also on video to the left of the steering wheel there's this little slot here for an sd card you put that in and then you turn on the car's performance recording system and you can use like the parking cameras to drive around a track and film your laps and that way you can watch them later and see like where you should have braked earlier later or where you should have turned better that sort of thing you can actually fill your laps using the built-in car cameras and the built-in sd card slot and that's all pretty cool tech in this car but anyway back to the gauge cluster in this track mode setting my very favorite thing is probably the tachometer along the top you can see it's this horizontal line and i love the fact that it totally de-emphasizes the lower end of the rev range like zero through 3000 rpm gets like an inch and everything above that actually matters in this car which i guess makes sense if you're on a race track it's just funny to see how they prioritize like the higher end of the rev range they don't care about the lower end that stuff doesn't matter when you're in the black wing and by the way speaking of the tachometer and the revs display in this car i want to talk about the heads-up display which has a very cool feature projected onto the windshield is a shift light arranged in a v pattern to match the ct5 v black wing and you can see as you get closer to redline it turns from green to yellow to red in the v letting you know when you have to shift directly in your line of sight that is a very cool feature from a heads up display and i love how they integrated that but anyway one more time back to the gauge cluster now i've shown you track mode but there are other modes here for the gauge cluster like i said very configurable you can go into sport and then you can see everything sort of changes and rearranges for a completely different display still a sporty one but not quite as track focused and aggressive you can also go into tour for what i would consider to be like a fairly standard normal gauge cluster display like you might find on a regular ct5 or a regular luxury sedan but that's kind of the cool thing about the gauge cluster screen you can configure it to match your mood or your drive mode which is a neat touch so that's all the good stuff in this interior the performance stuff and the stuff that i really like but there are some drawbacks in here too mostly related to your typical general motors decisions i want to start with the infotainment system now this actually works pretty well it's easy to use it's intuitive but it's already starting to feel old kind of a small screen kind of silly looking buttons compared to mercedes-benz and tesla which always seem to be refining and improving their screens this one not quite as good not quite as thorough or comprehensive certainly not quite as big and lacking some of the easy features and shortcuts that those cars have in fact one thing i really don't like about this screen is these two dials right next to each other exactly the same size that control two completely different functions in fact when you're on the audio part of this screen one of them controls volume the other will change the track you're listening to so if you really like a song you want to turn it up you select the wrong dial you'll actually change the song it looks exactly the opposite of what you wanted to happen it's so strange to have these two exactly identical dials that do completely different things right next to each other not really all that well thought out with that said in terms of interior tech i do love the rear view mirror in this car you can see right now it just looks like a mirror but if you flip this switch it's actually a camera and the benefit there is you don't have to like look at your rear passengers your rear headrests you have much better visibility when you have a rear view mirror camera i really like this feature that is good general motors but there's still a lot of not so good general motors throughout this interior specifically referring to the materials in here in fact i've noticed that everything that you don't pay extra for looks kind of crappy so like you pay extra for the alcantara shift lever and steering wheel these seats with their four colors all the carbon fiber but the rest of the stuff not really all that nice some examples the center control stack buttons here you can see primarily plastic and they just don't really look all that nice a far cry from what you get in mercedes-benz and bmw and it's the same deal with the switches over on the door panel you can see here the mirror control the power windows they just look like cheap plastic borrowed from the cheapest cadillac probably because they were it probably works in that car but this one with a hundred and thirteen thousand dollar sticker price that stuff just doesn't measure up and it's the same deal with the stocks coming off the steering column they don't look premium they look cheap and they feel cheap to touch which is disappointing because you're touching them pretty frequently and also they're not really positioned all that well you kind of have to reach for the turn signal stock which is just sort of a strange decision it feels like it was designed for a different car and then kind of stuck in this one probably because it was to save money and this is where mercedes-benz and bmw really distinguish themselves with nicer interiors and nicer materials pretty much everywhere you look with that said this car is cheaper than mercedes and bmw compared to an e63 or an m5 this is probably 10 15 maybe 20 000 cheaper with options and so you have some sacrifices for this level of power but anyway next up let's move outside the ct5v blackwing a few interesting quirks out here one is obviously this color which is insane it's called electric blue and they only charge 625 extra for it pretty good deal but i wouldn't get it even if it was free it attracts so much attention maybe that's what you're looking for but driving this thing fast on the highway a lot of eyes on you in this color it looks cool but i wouldn't get it on one i actually owned now one other thing i want to mention this area is the mirrors which are unbelievably small everybody who has written this car since i had it is commented on how tiny these mirrors are they're really not all that useful i'm not sure why they're so small but they are something to be on the lookout for if you consider this car test drive it whatever don't expect a lot of visibility out of the mirrors surprisingly and next up let's talk wheels these are 19-inch wheels which might surprise you most cars now have 20s or 21s but frankly i think these look just fine i'm not a fan of this continued wheel escalation 20s 21s 22s they're all starting to look a little stupid and this works perfectly and looks good and it's enough wheel to contain the front brakes which are 15.7 inch rotors absolutely massive and their carbon ceramic brakes on this car a performance option designed to reduce brake fade at the track nine thousand dollars extra for carbon ceramic brakes but if you plan to track this car you'll probably want them and next up still on the outside moving around to the back there are a few notable quirks and features back here one is this spoiler which is absolutely massive huge carbon fiber trunk mounted spoiler on the back of this car gives it an aggressive mean look any subtlety this car had in a more subtle color of course would kind of go out the window the moment people see this massive spoiler in back also noteworthy back here above the rear glass in the center of this shark fin antenna contains a camera that is the camera for the rear view mirror system i showed you before that rear view mirror camera that's where they mount it in order to give you the best widest angle view possible it's mounted on the roof also noteworthy back here below the bumper you have a large carbon fiber rear diffuser which of course looks sporty and aggressive and it contains quad exhaust pipes and of course the exhaust in the v blackwing sounds pretty good take a listen [Music] [Music] and the reason that this car sounds so good is right here this massive engine 6.2 liter v8 supercharged for about 670 horsepower and about 660 pound-feet of torque absolutely massive numbers now this is the very same engine that was in the outgoing cts-v it's brought back for the ct5v blackwing although it does have about 30 more horsepower and about 30 more pound-feet and you can get this car with a manual transmission like i mentioned you couldn't do that in the old cts-v so there are some improvements here now i was surprised when this car came out that it didn't have the same twin turbo v8 from the ct6v blackwing that engine got a lot of press when it first came out a lot of high praise but it's not in this car instead we have the old-school supercharged v8 from the old cts-v but that's probably for the best because the ct6v blackwing engine only made about 550 horsepower this one at 670 definitely an improvement over that and indeed with all that power 0-60 like i said around 3.4 seconds quarter mile is in the 11's top speed over 200 miles an hour this thing performance absolutely unbelievable also worth noting one interesting quirk of this engine bay i like the fact that cadillac has copied amg and they're now putting a plaque at the top of their engines with the signature of the person who built it in this case steve stinson thank you very much for this fantastic engine and all of its power i appreciate it and next up we move on to the slightly less interesting parts of this car starting with the back seat which is reasonably roomy as you can see i fit back here although it's worth noting that the sloping roofline design which cadillac thinks makes this car looks cool kind of steals some headroom from this car so if you have tall adults back here they might be like ducking just a little bit to sit comfortably kind of like i'm doing right now otherwise the rear seat in this car pretty standard you have a couple of charge points in the back of the front center console and you also have a couple of vents back there for climate control you could put down this center arm rest as you can see and it has cup holders and the materials are nice back here everything is pretty standard about how you'd expect as for the trunk also nothing particularly interesting in the trunk one thing that i found is it's a little narrower than i expected like the sides kind of come in a bit more than i was thinking they would and you also lose a little space to the battery which is in the trunk for weight distribution purposes so it's not quite as large as you might think but otherwise fairly normal fairly straightforward trunk nothing particularly unusual although i would have liked a power trunk closer you have to close it manually but at this price point would be nice to just push a button and it closes but you don't have that probably they didn't do it to save weight which is very important in this forty one hundred pound car that's where they drew the line no power trunk closer we give you all this tech and electronics and leather and screens but you don't get a power trunk closer we gotta be lightweight and performancy and so those are the quirks and features of the ct5v blackwing now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives all right driving the ct5v blackwing now this is especially interesting for me because i've actually owned two prior cts-vs i had a first-gen of v1 they call it and then i had a second gen v2 wagon i didn't own a v3 the most recent body style but i had a lot of experience in high performance cadillac sedans with big v8s so i'm curious to see how this one is and i can tell you straight away uh it's fast [Music] wow oh it is wow it is really fast it is really fast a couple of interesting things for one thing you know aside from an electric car there's nothing that gives you the torque that a v8 does that a supercharged v8 like this does um it's just incredibly incredibly torquey you put your foot down at any rpm in any gear truly at any speed and you feel like you have something and that's one of the things i love about my ford gt and that's a huge benefit here you also get this enormous sound that goes along with it and i'm sure there's no excess sound piped into this interior like this is what it is this is how it sounds and it sounds amazing listen to that and then there's the component of steering and handling this car has this really incredible thing this magnetic ride control suspension i don't find it to be quite as comfortable as some of my fellow journalists do i've heard i've read articles where they're like it drives like a corvette around corners and an s-class when you're driving normally i don't think that's true i drove an s-class recently this is not that comfortable but the magnetic ride control suspension does give you this amazing benefit wherein you really do have a more comfortable ride than you should given the handling and you really do have better handling than you should given the comfort of the ride it it still isn't like incredibly soft and luxurious ride it's not like you're just wafting but it feels nicer than it should considering how sporty this car is and how well it handles and how quick it is around corners and if i were to say which one it's a little more biased toward i would say handling it actually handles almost as well as any four-door sedan have ever driven but it is rougher than some of the luxury sedans so they've certainly kind of tuned in a little bit more for handling than for luxury so let's talk for a second about the type of people who buy this car it's interesting thing this is about 112 000 very well equipped like this one is maybe 115 with every option that's a lot less than an m5 competition or an amg e63 s which are probably better cars especially in terms of overall capability they're nicer inside they're more luxurious they certainly have more cachet and of course all-wheel drive helps put the power to ground a little better but they don't have a stick shift you know it's interesting cadillac brought the manual transmission back after ditching it in the old cts-v and i suspect the reason they did that truly is like i mentioned before i think they're trying to create a legacy i think they want this car to sort of be seen as the end of a line cadillac was the last brand that was really willing to do this to make a manual v8 rear wheel drive muscle car like this and i think that they think that's going to sell some new cars too not just have presence in the future but that people will want to be a part of that and frankly if you do you should there are only three manual performance sedans left on the market today this is debatable because you could get into what really constitutes a performance sedan but you get the sti you got the m3 and you have this sti and m3 are both amazing cars but they don't have a giant v8 and rear wheel drive this is the end of the line and i recently reviewed the lexus is 500 and people talking about how that's the end of a line this is the end of the line that car has a naturally aspirated engine which is an old-school thing but i'd rather have three pedals but it is pretty cool to kind of watch this finish and this is an amazing send-off for the v8 rear wheel drive manual transmission this car is unbelievably fast it's very well balanced and frankly i think this car is a little bit underrated the regular ct5 is a pretty mediocre car and so not a lot of people are talking about this but they've completely transformed it for the black wing the power train changes everything the suspension changes everything it's a far far better car than the base model and so that's the cadillac ct5v blackwing this is a seriously exciting car with some amazing capabilities and rear-wheel drive manual transmission and a big v8 in a world that's increasingly going towards all-wheel drive automatic transmissions and electric power trains this is a very very special vehicle and it might be one of the last cars ever made like this and it certainly is fast and now it's time to give the ct5v blackwing a doug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the ct5v blackwing looks decent i don't love the overall look of the ct5 it's fine but not amazing the black wing definitely helps but it's still only worthy of a 6 out of 10. acceleration is excellent 0-60 in a low 3-second range and it runs an 8 out of 10. handling is fantastic for a 4-door car and it gets a 6 out of 10. fun factor is excellent it's a total throw with all that power in a six-speed manual and it gets an 8 out of 10. and finally cool factor this car is exceptionally cool more than most similar sedans and it earns a 7 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 35 out of 50. next up are the daily categories and features the ct5v blackwing is well equipped though tech is starting to fall behind just a bit and it gets an 8 out of 10. comfort is excellent thanks to the magnetic suspension although it's not quite focused luxury car comfortable and it gets a 7 out of 10. quality is okay the interior is decent enough and reliability is a strong suit probably more than european rivals and it gets a six out of ten practicality is normal for a four-door sedan and it gets a five out of ten finally value and this car is very expensive but it offers a lot and frankly something no other car does big power rear drive v8 6-speed manual it gets a 7 out of 10 for a total daily score of 33 out of 50. added up and the dug score is 68 out of 100 which places the ct5v blackwing here against rivals it's not quite on the level of the new m5 or the audi rs7 or the mercedes amg stuff as an overall car since those offer amazing performance plus a better brand name and more features and luxury but the ct5v blackwing ties most of these cars in the weekend categories and frankly it deserves to if you're looking for an amazing sports sedan and fun is your top priority this is the one to get [Music] you

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 810,606

Rating: 4.9205732 out of 5

Keywords: 2022 cadillac ct5-v blackwing, cadillac ct5-v blackwing, ct5-v blackwing, ct5-v blackwing review, ct5-v, ct5-v blackwing cadillac, ct5-v review, blackwing review, cadillac blackwing, cadillac blackwing review, blackwing, cadillac v review, cadillac ct5-v, doug demuro, demuro, doug de muro

Id: G0eYIuTCEuA

Length: 28min 31sec (1711 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 23 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/trickster55]

Im from Europe, Netherlands.

So not only are we not getting an IS500 F, we're also not getting this blazing demon.

Feels Tax Man.

[u/andrewmackoul]

I got to ride in one of these several weeks ago when GM allowed employees that worked at the plant to have one for a few days as an appreciation thing.

I love how it sounds when you first start it up. You can change different characteristics of the car through the use of modes (e.g touring, sport, and V mode). You can create a custom mode and one of the options is how loud you'd like the exhaust (of which I maxed out).

I also like the built-in 0-60 timer, launch control, and burnout mode. The seats are pretty tight but it has massaging seats which were pretty interesting to use.

And yes, the car is pretty fast compared to my Cruze.

Feel free to ask me any questions!

(not an employee)

[u/GopherHockey10]

With only three digits of the VIN on the wheel, does that mean there would be more than one 66-001 out there? Or do we know for sure there will be less than 1000 per transmission per year?

[u/Uptons_BJs]

A list of likely lasts for this car:

• Last midsized manual sports sedan
• Last supercharged manual sports sedan
• Last Cadillac to come in a manual

​

In fact, I would say that it is very, very likely this is the last RWD sports sedan (note: I'll define sports sedan as the top performance sporty trim, a base 320i doesn't count). If you insist on sports sedans being RWD and not AWD, this is probably the last manual sports sedan ever.

[u/off_you_pop]

Why does Doug always have his arms out like Big Bird?

[u/[deleted]]

Dealers are already marking this up I saw one for $130k.

[u/GeoffKingOfBiscuits]

Signed engine plaque like AMG

I believe both GM and Ford were doing this before AMG. On the hot Corvettes and the first Ford GT, which /u/doug-demuro has one of the latter actually.

[u/pryan886]

Matching the key fob color to the brake caliper is the most GM thing ever. There were probably many PowerPoint presentations at various level of management to make this “decision”.

They could have made them all black/gray and no one would have though anything of it. They could have matched it to the body color, but that would make sense and be logistically complicated with a dozen or so paint colors.

So they matched it to the brake calipers, because they had to be different. I guess the best answer to give a GM exec is: why not?

[u/persamedia]

After the Throttle House review with those seats in their stunning colors are the icing on the cake!

edit: Man this and the LC500 are truly special ends to the V8 era, both are poster cars for me now. Dream garage if you will. Cant see it getting better than this, we will know if/when the next AMG sedan has a four popper at the end of its lifecycle