2020 Cadillac CT6-V // This BLACKWING V8 is a Performance MONSTER!

What's going on YouTube? So it's not often that a manufacturer has already announced the discontinuation of a model before it was even built. But that's the case with this CT6V. The factory where it is built will be closed in January meaning that there will likely be under 500 of these to ever exist. That's why the second we found out that one had arrived at Quantrell Cadillac, we dropped everything to go and check it out. Now of course we do want to specially thank them for inviting us out. And if you're in the market for either a high performance or normal Cadillac, make sure to pay them a visit. So with that all said, let's embark on the first in-depth review and drive of this epic Cadillac Now to start here on the outside, I have to say that Cadillac mostly hides the performance underneath of this luxurious body. There are not actually that many differences from the Platinum model we looked at last year, but the grille is finished in the signature black mesh like other V models. As far as the headlights, they are of course fully LED with Cadillac's signature daytime running light and turn signal that extend down the front. Looking at the rest of the styling, it continues to look very long, low, and elegant like every CT6 but there are a few unique elements to set the V apart. One of those is this carbon fiber lip sport and then the other four are the quad exhaust outlets pumping out that spectacular sound. So overall, I have to say that I really dig the exterior of this car since it's simultaneously elegant and aggressive. Now one aspect of the design I haven't mentioned yet are the wheels. They are very nice looking 20-inch multi-spoke alloys, but there are two other more plain options for about $2,000 extra. As far as the tires, they are high-performance summer tires and we also have specially developed four piston Brembo brakes. And then moving back to the mirrors, we have all the goodies as standard equipment like heating, auto dimming, and blind spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert. But anyways, the outside is not what you came for, so let's head inside the cabin before we do the important part which is taking this black wing out on the road. Now obviously as Cadillac's flagship sedan, you do have their smart entry system as well as their typical metal key fob with integrated remote start. And then in typical Cadillac fashion to get inside the vehicle, there is not a sensor behind the handle, so you just press this little button. Alright, so taking a look inside the CT6V. As you can see, it does mostly have the same interior from the standard CT6. However, there are some exclusive touches for this V model. Now one thing to know about this vehicle right off the bat here is that it pretty much comes fully loaded. There's not really a great deal of choices you have. However, one of the choices you do get to pick is your interior color. There's two options. It's going to be jet black or this color which is called dark auburn. Obviously it is real leather seating. And then all the CT6V models will come with carbon fiber interior trim. Now turning over here to your door trim, obviously it is very nicely appointed. You do have leather all through the armrest area as well as above it and across the top of the door trim. You've got some more of that carbon fiber trim. Nice real aluminum door handle. All four of your windows are one-touch automatic and you do have two-person memory seating. Now on this CT6, they have the kind of Mercedes style door mounted seat controls. This is for the 16-way power adjusting seats with four-way lumbar support. And then just kind of touching the seats themselves, the leather feels very high quality. I really always have loved the way Cadillac designs the seats with a really unique stitching detail. Now as far as your cabin materials are concerned, as Cadillac's flagship sedan, of course you do have a very nice selection. Now across your entire upper dash here, this is finished in a nice leather material with a stitching detail through it. Dropping down here to the middle, you have a big piece of the carbon fiber trim as well as this perforated leather material that comes through here. You have soft touch materials that drop down through this area. And then as you can see, everything does fit together very nicely, of course. And you do have more carbon fiber trim through there. But now let's get to the part you really came for. Just listen to that. It is incredible. Alrighty, but refocusing here back in the interior, what you're looking at is Cadillac's premium 12.3 inch fully reconfigurable gauges. You can just make adjustments right here with the steering wheel buttons. So you can adjust both the left and right side. We can also hop into our settings here and you can even change the entire layout if you want to. So right now obviously it's in the performance mode, but you can go into more of a classic layout if you prefer that. As you can see, you have really neat animations and stuff. Cadillac does this or is one of the best at doing the reconfigurable gauges in the business. Now in addition to that, you also are going to have a head-up display. Of course, it is fully adjustable and you can just press the little info button and it can switch between different things, including a race car style tachometer, which is really cool. Now going back to the steering, you have electric power assisted steering. Obviously the steering wheel is nicely leather wrapped. It is heated and you do have the carbon fiber trim with the newest Cadillac design here. Rain sensing wipers are going to be standard on this model, as well as a full power adjusting steering wheel. My favorite thing about it though is that we have full magnesium paddle shifters. So just listen to that. Real metal. Obviously that is lovely to touch. Now obviously interior storage is not a huge focus of this car, but the CT6 does have plenty of it. So you open up this center console here to the side and then once inside you can see there is a nicely sized and nicely felt line area here. You do have a USB type-a and a USB type-c. Then right through here, this is your wireless phone charging pad. So you just set your phone on it like that and then you can actually slide this in and out without having to open this up. This is the newest fast charging method right here. It's been updated. And then underneath the carbon fiber, of course, you do have two cup holders. Now checking out the shifter here. This is the updated electronic Cadillac shifter. So it's actually pretty simple to use. You just pull back for drive. You can pull back once more to go into the manual mode. That's where you can shift with those nice paddle shifters. From reverse, you just go all the way up to the front so you don't have to do the side and up like you have had to do on certain other Cadillac models. And then when you do, you will notice the standard 360 degree camera system fire up. I've complimented General Motors vehicles in the past about this and I'll continue to do so. This is one of the best 360 cameras in the business. Very, very clear. You have both your 360 and obviously your regular view with Active Trajectory. Then you have a ton of views down here that you can just switch between. You've got kind of a front and back view, a 360 degree view, and then you can also check out the side so you don't scrape these beautiful rims against a curbing or anything like that. And then for park, all you have to do is just press the P on the top of the shifter. You do also have an electronic parking brake over there and then the brake hold feature is located right here. Now while I'm over here you'll notice this button labeled modes. This of course is going to be your drive modes as you'd expect. So we've got snow, ice, track, sport, and touring. And as you can see that does update the design accordingly just to remind you what mode you're in because it does have a big difference in the driving dynamics. I'll get into that a little later but it changes the torque split of this all-wheel drive system quite dramatically depending on which mode that you're in. And then up in front of that you'll find your volume knob for the standard Bose Panerai 34 speaker surround sound system. That's an incredible number of speakers but anyways we'll go ahead and take a sample of that right now. Well I have to say sound quality is one of the best sound systems I've ever experienced. I do also want to point out that this speaker right here this actually pops in and out of the dash when you fire up the vehicle. That's just a really really cool touch. I love when cars do that it just really makes things feel so much more special. And then down here we do have our climate controls. It is dual zone automatic so just adjust it like so. You also have standard three stage heating and three stage ventilation with the separate back and butt controls like most General Motors vehicles. Alright and then up above here we've got the newest version of the Cadillac user interface or the Q system. You do have both a couple physical buttons here as well as the virtual buttons. Now obviously the focus of this car is on performance and not on stuff like this so I won't spend a whole bunch of time on this but you do have standard navigation. This is the newest General Motors layout so you do have like live traffic and updates as you can see very responsive as well. You also have standard Apple CarPlay and Android Auto of course if you prefer to use that. We do have a very detailed dedicated tech help video available for those of you who want to learn more about the system. A link to that video is provided in the description. Now heading on up here you will find the standard General Motors rear vision camera system here. So obviously just flip that switch and it cuts out all the obstructions and gives you a really really high quality camera feed. And then turning right here you will notice since everything on this car is standard you do have the standard panoramic moonroof. It is basically a dual panel setup here. You can just slide back this front panel it does open up as usual and you do have a window. But anyways guys that is going to conclude all the features to look at in the front part of the cabin. So now we'll go ahead and step into the back and check out those features. Now stepping to the back here obviously the door trim has the same high-quality materials as the front. So you have leather all through these portions as well as the real carbon fiber trim. We do also have a sunshade here so you just let it go like that. You also notice you have controls for both the rear panoramic moonroof so that can open and close that sunshade and then you also have one that's back there for the rear window in case the sun is shining onto the back of your neck. Now as an executive sedan obviously you're going to have an abundance of features. So this area right here is beautifully rendered. You've got this really nice panoramic speaker grille and I did fail to mention it earlier but here are your heated seat controls. You do have separate butt and back settings right there. Now as far as legroom is concerned obviously this is a large executive style sedan so I have plenty of space to stretch out fully. I'm 5'3 or excuse me 5'8. This is my seating position. I've probably got like a foot and a half of legroom right here. I don't have any official numbers though because Cadillac hasn't released it yet. As far as other features back here we can pull down our center console and we do have a little bit of storage in there nicely felt lined of course. You also have some cup holders down in the end of this. Now heading around here to the trunk. This is a hands-free fully power tailgate so just kick your foot underneath there and it will open right up. Now once again just like the back areas I don't have any official dimensions but as a gigantic limo like sedan we do have plenty of space. It is worth noting though these seats do not fold you will have to make do with just that center pass-through. Now over here at our passenger side seat it is exactly the same as the driver's seat so you've still got the 16 ways of adjustment four-way lumbar support and the two-person memory seating. Checking out the glove box here it is nicely sized dampened illuminated and felt lined and then coming up here we do have obviously a sun visor with mirror and light it does detach and it also extends outward. Alrighty so that is going to conclude the entire cabin so now let's get to the fun part let's take this boss out on the road. Alright so before we take off here I want to hit you guys with some specifications because this engine is phenomenal. So what we have is the Blackwing series brand-new Cadillac exclusive engine 4.2 liter twin-turbo v8 producing 550 horsepower and 627 pound-feet of torque so absolutely incredible numbers. Like I said this is not used in any other General Motors product and it's actually hand-built at the Corvette assembly plant here in Kentucky in Bowling Green so it's pretty cool it even has like the signature kind of like AMG products but in this case it was built by a man named Todd here in Kentucky so that's really cool. As far as your transmission that is a 10-speed automatic and we do have standard all-wheel drive now that depending on the drive mode you select the torque split changes dramatically so by default in the touring mode it's going to be 60% to the rear 40% of the power to the front when you go into sport that's going to be 80% to the rear and then when you go into the track mode 95% of the power will be sent to the rear. Finally as far as your fuel economy not a strong suit of this vehicle you don't expect it to be of course so you're looking at 14 city 25 highway 17 combined which considering this category of vehicle being a sedan that does get hit by a gas guzzler tax which at the end of the video will tell you how much that is but anyways that's enough of all the numbers let's go ahead and get out on the road all right guys so now it is time for the part that we've all been waiting for trust me we always do the test drive at the last part of the video so it's been excruciating just kind of doing all the boring bits I just desperately wanted to get this out on the road as soon as possible but now we're out on the road here so it's very exciting Mason's gonna be missing out today he had other plans already arranged we kind of had the day off so to speak then I received word that this was here so when a car like this arrives you're not going to mess around you know this is a very rare vehicle so I know there's already interested parties in purchasing this so we had to get out here and get a review in before somebody snags this beast holy crap the power it is insane I'm speechless you can probably tell I don't even really know what to say like it just comes on so hard thrust you back over 600 pound-feet of torque will do that it it's just amazing and then you know if you put really puts the power down with the all-wheel-drive system and that sound that sound that sound it just sounds like America just beautiful you don't even have to be going fast at all just to enjoy the power delivery in the sound of this I'm really impressed though by the refinement of this engine a lot of times you know something so big and powerful you know it would be like really I guess visceral and rough this is that actually a very smooth engine it definitely feels very befitting of a luxury flagship sedan like this you know you know sure it sounds like really macho and you know tough and burly but at the same time it does just have a very refined power delivery oh my goodness it's just it's crazy it reminds me the closest thing I can that I've driven that I can think of would be the Mercedes AMG GT 63 it kind of has a similar character to that where you just just have a huge giant wonderful sounding that just puts out crazy power crazy torque you know it just and you just barely get on it and you just pushes your face back of course by the specs this seemed like this would be an amazing vehicle but you always have to try something out in person to know for sure but I have to say it lives up to all my expectations and then some it feels exactly what like a big flagship Cadillac should be now we're just kind of coming down the road here we're about 50 miles an hour right now I'm gonna go ahead and discuss the ride of the vehicle and one of the really nice things about this is that you have magnetic ride control and it rides very very comfortably that's why I was saying that it just seems like everything that a Cadillac flagship should be and that's part of it because it's still very comfortable this is an excellent luxury sedan you know this is not this is not hardcore you know you're not going down the road rattling your teeth and hurting your spine I'm in absolute comfort right now and when you're just driving around normally like what I'm doing right now you know it's very quiet so just going around the city you don't have to have the all the noise if you don't want it you've got that 34 speaker Panharay sound system I would much prefer to listen to the engine but that's an amazing sound system as well I'll go ahead and put it into the manual mode you try out those paddle shifters like I said this is a 10-speed automatic so I was actually cruising down the road here and eighth gear at only 54 miles an hour so you know you do have a lot of transmission gears but I haven't there's a I don't notice even when it shifts yes it's certainly not a confused transmission the General Motors does a really good job with their 10-speed automatic a little bit slower to respond to the paddles than I would like just a half second you gotta it revs real fast so you gotta kind of shift a little bit early to compensate for that go ahead and put it in the sport mode that's going to change the power distribution also it's going to enhance the sound as well now there's not really a great deal of corners that we're in the city of course but we didn't kind of just go around one so I might as well talk about it there it's really frankly amazing there's something so big can move so well you know I it just doesn't even seem right certain cars you're in it just kind of boggles your mind but anyways I'm gonna go ahead and conclude because the GoPro is probably about to fall off in a matter of seconds since it's already been stuck up there for about five minutes Wow that's really the best way that I can sum this car up it's it's incredible to have such performance and such power and such luxury all together in one thing it it's crazy it really is now of course this is a very exclusive vehicle so you would expect nothing less than a very exclusive price tag and indeed it does have one so what you'll be looking at is a starting price of ninety one thousand seven hundred and ninety five dollars now like I said it pretty much comes fully loaded but there is one package you can add and we have that one that's the drivers assist package and then in the options category they have gas guzzler tax I've never seen any taxes that are optional so I don't know why it's in that category but that's going to be thirteen hundred dollars and then we have some all-weather floor mats for 190 $995 destination and then that's going to bring the total to ninety seven thousand three hundred and eighty dollars obviously that is a very very expensive price tag but you're talking about a vehicle that they'll probably produce less than a thousand of in its lifetime honestly