Road Test Editor HOWARD WALKER hot-laps Caddy’s new super coupe around the Palm Beach Driving Club track.
Who says Florida doesn’t have any great driving roads? Head over towards West Palm and there’s a ribbon of asphalt there, above, that’ll satisfy your every craving of curve carving and flat-out, pedal-to-the-metal V-max acceleration.
It used to be called the Moroso Raceway. Now this snaking two-mile house of fun goes by the posher name of the Palm Beach International Raceway. It’s the home of the Palm Beach Driving Club; join up and you can perfect your inner Mario ‘till your heart’s content!
Right now they have around 33 members who are armed with an array of suitable high-performance exotica; Porsche 911s, Ferrari F430s, Lambo Gallardos, plus an assortment of fast and furious race machinery.
To try out the track for size, we’ve brought along the perfect projectile, Cadillac’s awesome new 556-horse supercharged CTS-V coupe. With zero to 60 in 3.9 secs, and a top speed of 191 mph, it is stupendously fast.
This is a car to lock horns with BMW’s blunt instrument M3 coupe and Audi’s upcoming 450-horsepower RS5 coupe, and give them a collective spanking! So thrilling is the Caddy’s performance, so agile is its handling, so dynamic is the whole package that, for me, this $63-grand rocketship sets a new world standard in sports coupe sexiness.
Just look at the thing. Here is a car with more angles and edges than the Hope diamond, more folds and creases than Keith Richards’ face. Run your hand along any part of the Cadillac’s razor-edged trunk lid and you’ll be running for a Band-Aid. Paint it matte black and you have a road-going Stealth B-2!
Yes, the regular CTS-V sedan shares a lot of the coupe’s so-called Art & Science design cues.
But the two-door’s lower roofline, ski slope rear screen and flying wedge profile simply add to its he-man appeal.
Then there’s that motor. Sired from the LS9 small-block that’s in the Corvette ZR1 – yes, it’s a pushrod – this Caddy LSA V8 features a smaller Eaton twin vortices supercharger but shares the same aluminum block and heads as the ’Vette.
Blowing at 9-psi peak boost pressure, this monster motor cranks out its 556 horsepower at 6,100 rpm and 551 pound-feet of twist at 3,800 rpm. Not surprisingly, it’s the most powerful production Caddy motor in the company’s storied 108-year history.
The beauty of the Palm Beach circuit is that it’s essentially a no-danger zone, with the track being at least 40 feet wide, no elevation change – hey, we’re in Florida – and with none of the 11 turns being blind. That makes it perfect for perfecting your driving skills and learning exactly what your car is doing.
The only heart-stopper is the super-long, super-fast, half-mile back straightaway that requires serious stoppers to prevent you ending up in the Everglades! Thankfully the Cadillac has the brakes from hell – whopping 15-inch rotors up front, 14.7-inch at the back, clamped by serious Brembo calipers. Hit them hard at 100 mph and they’ll haul you to a stop in just 290 feet.
But through the curves, the CTS-V is an absolute riot. Our tester has the slick-shifting Hydra-Matic 6L90 six-speed auto – the six-speed Tremec TR6060 manual is a no-cost option – and swaps gears with sweet, bolt action ease.
One of the Caddy’s best assets is its Magnetic Ride Control suspension with its hyper-fast-reacting magnetic shocks. Throwing the car around the PBIR track, the system reacts beautifully to all the weight transfers and curb hopping.
While this is a big car – it tips the scales at around 4,200 pounds – it never feels it, thanks to its nicely weighted and laser-precise steering. Push hard into the never-ending left-hander just after the pit exit and the car will take a set, summon-up all the grip from its sticky Michelin Pilots and with just a hint of balancing understeer, power its way through.
And if you do try very hard, the Caddy’s Stabilitrak stability-control system doesn’t play the instant nanny by shutting off the power. It’ll let both ends slither and slide before summoning the electronics to bring you back in line.
Add to all this deeply-bolstered Recaro front seats that grip you tighter than a Hulk Hogan bear-hug, and a suede-rimmed helm that’s just the right thickness, and you have a car that is just a joy to drive hard.
Remember, Holiday season is just around the corner. What better gift could you give than a CTS-V coupe with a membership to the Palm Beach Driving Club? Yo-Ho-Ho!
For more information about 2011 Cadillac CTS-V models, please visit, http://www.cadillac.com/
For more information about Palm Beach International Raceway, check out, http://racepbir.com/
For more information about the Palm Beach Driving Club, please visit, http://www.palmbeachdrivingclub.com/