American Born German Trained

If you are looking for a sporty, mid-sized luxury saloon, there are quite a few models to choose from. The new Cadillac CTS is one of them. but is it a head-turner? Malcolm Xavier Crasta took one out for a spin around Muscat to answer just this question

To be viable as a sport-luxury exec, a vehicle has to tick the right boxes. It has to look good, have a stylish interior, be loaded with features, feel sporty and have a comfortable ride. And to compete with its stiff competition it has to excel in most, if not all, of these.

Lets start with the most obvious one – the looks. With the CTS it is a matter of love or hate, you either love it or you hate it. Personally though, we absolutely love it. The CTS is a very handsome car from practically any angle. It retains the bold edges of the original, making the car distinctly Cadillac, adding a raked back glass and an extra-wide C-pillar to make the car look more like a coupe. Likewise, the heavily raked front grille and the dual-purpose, centre brake light/spoiler indicates its performance intent. Its decision to stick with its predecessors design trend and offer up an angular look portrays modernity as well as class. Thankfully Cadillac hasn’t gone overboard with the design and as a result the car will look perfectly at home alongside its German and Japanese counterparts.

The same follows suit on the inside as well. It is angular, stylish, classy and sporty all at the same time. Even more surprising is the fact that it has struck an almost perfect balance between each of the four factors. Once inside, you are surrounded by high quality leather and burled walnut trim. With the correct choice of interior colour and the available ambient lighting in the car, the cabin can be a very accommodating place for long drives. The only nagging criticism that we have of the interior is the centre console which, although very stylish and good looking, is a tad bit too cluttered for our tastes and the material used is a minor let-down in comparison to the rest of the cabin’s high quality standards. The CTS more than makes up for this by offering oodles of kit to play around with. You have everything you could possibly want in a car – A high quality surround sound system with a built in hard-drive, full power adjustments for the driver and front passenger, ventilated seats, keyless entry, sat-nav with a nifty pop-up screen and a lot more. Overall, the cabin is very nice place to be and, in our opinion, is by far the best looking interior among the Cadillac range.

American cars are not really known for their handling characteristics but this is where the CTS differs. The car, namely the CTS-V, was exhaustively tested and tuned at Germany’s legendary Nurburgring circuit. For those of you who are not familiar with the track – ‘The Ring’ is a 13 mile circuit with over 180 corners and is considered to be the toughest, most dangerous and most demanding purpose-built race track in the world. It is not affectionately called ‘The Green Hell’ for nothing! The result of these tests shines through once you are behind the wheel. The car is just as good on twisting mountain roads as it is on the highway and with a 3.7l V6, producing 326hp, under the bonnet it is no slouch either. Unfortunately, its girth prevent it from being as agile as it could be. This also means that you will have to rev the engine hard to truly experience the true capability of its great chassis. But, as if to make up for this, the CTS does entice you to push it harder with a very delightful engine soundtrack that any motor-head will enjoy. We can just imagine what the CTS-V must be capable off, especially with its sport suspension setup and 556 insane rampaging horses under the bonnet.

Overall, it seems that the CTS ticks all the right boxes. It is good-looking, modern, sporty and feature rich. It is also safe and aside from some slight wind and road noise, which is really not as obtrusive as you might think, it is quite refined as well. All-in-all it makes for a great alternative that should not be overlooked if you are in the market for such a car, especially so if you like its looks.