Daily Driver: 2016 Cadillac ATS-V Sedan
Tue, Oct 13 2015
You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. And don't forget to watch more Autoblog videos at /videos.
[00:00:00] Hey, it's David Gluckman with another Daily Driver. Today I'm driving a 2016 Cadillac ATS-V. This is the sedan model and it has the optional eight-speed automatic transmission. The ATS-V is the small performance car in Cadillac's lineup. It sits below the CTS-V, which is also new for 2016. Ever since the base ATS came out a few years ago, this has always been a wonderful chassis in search of a great engine to compliment it. This car really changes that.
[00:00:30] They've dialed up the chassis, the suspension is a little stiffer, the body is even stiffer, and they've put this really nice 3.6-liter twin-turbo V6 engine under the hood. In terms of power and torque, the new V6 outguns it's main bogey, the BMW M3 and M4. The Cadillac engine puts out 464 horsepower and 445 pound feet of torque, which is tons.
[00:01:00] The one issue, though, is the way it delivers that power. It's not as smooth as the BMW and there's a bit of turbo lag that you really don't feel in the German engine. Once you get moving, however, this engine really just wakes up. There's no lag once you're at highway speed. You can floor it and there's plenty of power and torque for easy passes and runup to extra-legal speeds.
[00:01:30] It's tons of fun there but around town it just kind of lacks a little bit of the smoothness and responsiveness that we're kind of expecting for a car in this class. The engine does sound pretty nice, though. It has this nice little growl when you start it up and when you get on it, it actually sounds more like a supercharged engine than a turbocharged one. It's a little strange, I think that's maybe some active noise cancellation that Cadillac is doing to cancel out the whooshes and whirs that we're used to from a turbocharger.
[00:02:00] That's fine with me. Whatever it is, it sounds good. This car gets the same fancy rear limited-slip differential that the Corvette introduced a couple years ago. It does a really good job of keeping everything manageable. You almost can't tell that the car has 464 horsepower. It keeps everything in line. It gives you a little bit of leeway
[00:02:30] too when you're goosing it a little bit, coming around a turn. It's fun. Cadillac CUE, or the Cadillac User Experience, is still one of my least favorite infotainment systems. Fortunately for 2016, Cadillac and the rest of the GM brands are introducing Apple Car Play and Android Auto support. Basically those systems take over for the infotainment system. You don't have to deal with the quirks of CUE. The ATS-V sedan starts at about $61,000.
[00:03:00] The one I'm sitting in has been optioned up to $75,000. If you can believe it, you can get that price all the way up to $80,000, which is about $5,000 shy of a base CTS-V sedan. For all that money, though, this one has a carbon-fiber exterior package, special paint, painted brake calipers, the Recaro seats, the automatic transmission. It serves as a really nice small luxury car with a performance engine, but it doesn't quite provide the thrill
[00:03:30] that I was expecting in everyday driving.
For Autoblog, I'm David Gluckman. [00:03:38]
[00:00:30] They've dialed up the chassis, the suspension is a little stiffer, the body is even stiffer, and they've put this really nice 3.6-liter twin-turbo V6 engine under the hood. In terms of power and torque, the new V6 outguns it's main bogey, the BMW M3 and M4. The Cadillac engine puts out 464 horsepower and 445 pound feet of torque, which is tons.
[00:01:00] The one issue, though, is the way it delivers that power. It's not as smooth as the BMW and there's a bit of turbo lag that you really don't feel in the German engine. Once you get moving, however, this engine really just wakes up. There's no lag once you're at highway speed. You can floor it and there's plenty of power and torque for easy passes and runup to extra-legal speeds.
[00:01:30] It's tons of fun there but around town it just kind of lacks a little bit of the smoothness and responsiveness that we're kind of expecting for a car in this class. The engine does sound pretty nice, though. It has this nice little growl when you start it up and when you get on it, it actually sounds more like a supercharged engine than a turbocharged one. It's a little strange, I think that's maybe some active noise cancellation that Cadillac is doing to cancel out the whooshes and whirs that we're used to from a turbocharger.
[00:02:00] That's fine with me. Whatever it is, it sounds good. This car gets the same fancy rear limited-slip differential that the Corvette introduced a couple years ago. It does a really good job of keeping everything manageable. You almost can't tell that the car has 464 horsepower. It keeps everything in line. It gives you a little bit of leeway
[00:02:30] too when you're goosing it a little bit, coming around a turn. It's fun. Cadillac CUE, or the Cadillac User Experience, is still one of my least favorite infotainment systems. Fortunately for 2016, Cadillac and the rest of the GM brands are introducing Apple Car Play and Android Auto support. Basically those systems take over for the infotainment system. You don't have to deal with the quirks of CUE. The ATS-V sedan starts at about $61,000.
[00:03:00] The one I'm sitting in has been optioned up to $75,000. If you can believe it, you can get that price all the way up to $80,000, which is about $5,000 shy of a base CTS-V sedan. For all that money, though, this one has a carbon-fiber exterior package, special paint, painted brake calipers, the Recaro seats, the automatic transmission. It serves as a really nice small luxury car with a performance engine, but it doesn't quite provide the thrill
[00:03:30] that I was expecting in everyday driving.
For Autoblog, I'm David Gluckman. [00:03:38]
By David Gluckman
See also: Cadillac gives ATS, CTS new V6 for 2016, 2016 Cadillac ATS-V Sedan Beauty-Roll, Cadillac recalls 120k examples of ATS for fire risk.