It was a very tough decision picking Car Driven’s first Car of the Year (COTY) winner, but the CTS-V Coupe had quite a lot of things going for it that propelled it above the other nominees.
First things first, the styling. Love it or hate it, it’s definitely eye catching. And in this vehicle segment you don’t want something that will fly under most people’s radar, you need a car that looks the part. Cadillac has managed to keep its “art & science” styling direction fresh with this bold new design. Those sharp angular LED tail lights are classic Cadillac all while exuding Cadillac’s apparent new direction in creating performance cars. An aggressive front facia up front alone with a completely unique side profile and those huge twin exhausts in the center really complete the look. Cadillac obviously means business.
This is also evident by the choice of power train. Cadillac uses a 556 horsepower V8 which helps it get from 0-100 in just 3.9 seconds. Combine it with rear wheel drive, a sport tuned suspension and, crucially, a six speed manual option and you’ve got yourself one hell of a delicious performance recipe. To help out with additional performance, the CTS-V Coupe gets larger intakes than the CTS-V sedan and it gets standard brembo brakes.
And the best part is, you get all that for just over $70K. What tremendous value! Cadillac has come an extremely long way from the cars they used to make.
The end result is being featured on the front page next to benchmarks such as the BMW M3, the Audi RS5 and the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG. Not bad company to be in at all. In fact, to be mentioned among those names in the car business? Praise doesn’t get much higher than that.
Congratulations to Cadillac for winning Car Driven’s COTY!