Thread: 2011 Cadillac CTS-V Wagon

If any vehicle on the market now could be regarded the automotive equivalent of baseball’s 5-tool player, the Cadillac CTS-V wagon would be it. Fine, so a car does not have batting power, or base-functioning or fielding powers. But the CTS-V 5-door has an undeniably broad pictures of talents: It can eat corners similar it does highway miles, devastate the ego of many a stoplight warrior, and haul kids or anything else you can set by the hatch or on the roof. Later the wagon collected 2 consecutive 10 Excellent trophies beginning in 2010, we experienced it was time for a 40,000-mile playoff with this automotive dynasty. Cadillac had one caveat: We had to assist construct the car.




We checked the crafty hand of Caddy’s PR department in this gambit—“Of course it fell apart; you guys built it!”—but who would not play along? Besides, the possible for catastrophe was limited: We were just permitted to tack, stick, and bolt on the car’s nonessential bits. Major-part installations would be managed through the UAW pros. So a handful of editors convened at the Lansing Grand River assembly plant at oh-dark-thirty one morning in October 2010 to follow our V wagon down its serpentine line. We expected on as workers bolted in Recaro seats, married the power train to the body, and attached our car’s faux-suede-wrapped steering wheel and shift knob. They supervised us as midnight sapele wood trim was pressed into place through our minimally trained hands. We did convince the LGR crew to let us sign the spare-tire well early inserting the trim in place.


Our baby came in mid-December, later two months of labor. That meant we instantly had to slap on few Pirelli Winter 240 Sottozero tires because there was no way the CTS-V’s Michelin Pilot Sport PS2s could maintain it secure in even the lightest dusting of snow.