2017 Cadillac CTS-V – Redline: Review

Cadillac’s 2017 CTS-V borrows its supercharged 6.2-liter engine straight from the Corvette Z06, packing 640 horsepower into a four-door built to out-muscle BMW, Mercedes, and Audi’s best. Redline Reviews puts the numbers, the pricing, and the not-quite-German polish under the microscope to see whether raw power was ever enough to win this fight. With the CTS-V nameplate now retired for good, every one of these cars left on the road is part of a shrinking, oddly overlooked slice of American performance history. Watch to see what the walkaround reveals.

German sedans have owned this fight for decades — BMW M5, Mercedes-AMG E63, Audi RS6, badges that mean something to buyers chasing 600 horsepower with a back seat attached. Then Cadillac, of all companies, decided to drop a Corvette engine into a four-door and see what happened. Not a detuned version, not a sport trim with some extra black trim — the actual supercharged 6.2-liter LT4 out of the C7 Z06, sitting under the hood of a car built to carry groceries. Whether that trade actually holds up on the road, and whether it’s worth walking away from three German badges to get it, is what this review sets out to answer.

A Corvette Engine Wearing a Business Suit

The heart of the 2017 CTS-V is the supercharged 6.2-liter LT4, the same engine that powered the C7 Corvette Z06, tuned here to 640 horsepower and 630 lb-ft of torque. That’s enough to send a nearly two-ton luxury sedan from 0-60 mph in around 3.7 seconds and on to a top speed north of 200 mph — numbers that would have sounded absurd for a four-door just a decade earlier. Cadillac backed the engine with an 8-speed automatic and paddle shifters, magnetic ride control suspension developed alongside the Corvette and Camaro programs, and Brembo brakes sized to actually rein the car back in. The result reads less like a sport sedan chasing a lap time and more like American muscle that learned to wear a tailored suit.

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Where the CTS-V Beats the Germans — and Where It Doesn’t

Against the BMW M5, Mercedes-AMG E63 S, and Audi RS6 of its era, the CTS-V held its own on raw numbers and, in a straight line, often beat them outright — while undercutting all three on price by a meaningful margin. What it didn’t quite match was the last few percent of polish: interior fit and finish that still read as a notch below the German competition, and infotainment software that lagged behind. For a buyer chasing a dyno sheet over a badge on the trunk, that trade was an easy one to make, and it’s exactly the trade this Redline Reviews walkaround digs into.

Three Generations of CTS-V, One Send-Off

The 2017 model marked the final chapter for the CTS-V nameplate that began in 2004 as Cadillac’s first real shot at a genuine performance sedan. The first generation borrowed LS6 power from the Corvette of its day; the second added a supercharged LSA out of the CTS-V wagon and coupe era that enthusiasts still chase today; the third-generation car reviewed here closed the story with the most power of any of them. Watching where the CTS-V started next to where it ended makes clear this wasn’t a one-off stunt — it was Cadillac spending over a decade learning how to build something that could actually embarrass a 5-Series.

Built in Michigan, Not Munich

The CTS-V rolled off the line at GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly plant in Michigan, built in far smaller numbers than any of its German rivals ever were. That scarcity took on more weight once GM retired the CTS nameplate entirely after 2019, folding Cadillac’s sedan lineup into the CT4 and CT5. Every third-generation CTS-V left in circulation is now a fixed, shrinking population — no more will ever be built, and the used market has started to notice.

The Collector Case for a ‘Boring’ Four-Door

Sedans rarely earn the same reverence as coupes and convertibles in muscle car circles, but the CTS-V’s combination of a genuine Corvette-sourced powertrain, limited production, and its status as the swan song for GM’s V-badged Cadillac program gives it a real claim to future collectibility. It’s one of the few four-doors that a die-hard LS or Hemi enthusiast will actually cross-shop against a coupe — and that alone says something about what Cadillac pulled off here.

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