Photo: Cadillac
There’s never been a more powerful Cadillac than the CT5-V Blackwing. The successor to the CTS-V and shorter brother of the CT6-V rocks a good ol’ pushrod V8 engine with a thumpin’ great blower, and similarly to Mercedes-AMG, every single LT4 V8 is assembled by hand by one person.
“It used to be a high-volume engine,” said Blackwing chief engineer Mirza Grebovic, “but now it’s a single builder that builds the whole engine. When they are done, they’ll use a plaque with his or her name. We machined a little spot on the supercharger lid where he or she can put it on. Every customer will be able to see who built their engine,” he told GM Authority.
The Performance Build Center in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is where the high-output variant of LT4 is assembled. It’s the same location where the LTA used to be made, also by hand and also by a single operator. As opposed to the small-block V8 in the CT5-V Blackwing, the full-size CT6-V sports sedan features a far more complex 4.2-liter DOHC mill with a couple of turbos to boot.
How does the LT4 in the Blackwing compare to the LT4 in the Camaro ZL1? To be honest, they’re too close at 668 compared to 650 horsepower and 659 compared to 650 pound-feet (893 versus 881 Nm) of torque. Given this information, the hand-built part is on the pretentious side of things.
Also worthy of note, the similarities between the Caddy and Chevy include the six-speed manual transmission and 10-speed automatic transmission. Still, the CT5-V Blackwing is priced higher than the Camaro ZL1 and tops $121,895 if you specify all the optional extras that General Motors can throw at it.
Last but certainly not least, care to guess why GM didn’t use the more potent LT5 engine of the seventh-gen Corvette ZR1 in the mid-size sports sedan? According to Mirza Grebovic, “you couldn’t see out of the car” and “we wouldn’t have the right chassis for it” due to the 305/30R19 rear tires.
The Performance Build Center in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is where the high-output variant of LT4 is assembled. It’s the same location where the LTA used to be made, also by hand and also by a single operator. As opposed to the small-block V8 in the CT5-V Blackwing, the full-size CT6-V sports sedan features a far more complex 4.2-liter DOHC mill with a couple of turbos to boot.
How does the LT4 in the Blackwing compare to the LT4 in the Camaro ZL1? To be honest, they’re too close at 668 compared to 650 horsepower and 659 compared to 650 pound-feet (893 versus 881 Nm) of torque. Given this information, the hand-built part is on the pretentious side of things.
Also worthy of note, the similarities between the Caddy and Chevy include the six-speed manual transmission and 10-speed automatic transmission. Still, the CT5-V Blackwing is priced higher than the Camaro ZL1 and tops $121,895 if you specify all the optional extras that General Motors can throw at it.
Last but certainly not least, care to guess why GM didn’t use the more potent LT5 engine of the seventh-gen Corvette ZR1 in the mid-size sports sedan? According to Mirza Grebovic, “you couldn’t see out of the car” and “we wouldn’t have the right chassis for it” due to the 305/30R19 rear tires.
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