By Ed

If you've visited this blog recently, you know that the CTS-V, Chris and myself are new additions to this site. So, we've updated the "About the Authors" section to provide a little background info on myself and Chris.

Posted by Editor at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

By Chris

Ed’s post above on our first trip to Arizona refreshed a memory for me also. We ended this ride at Phoenix International Raceway. You’d think that would be the highlight of the trip, right? After all that’s a full-on professional track with an infield road course where we ran the cars pretty hard. But, actually the highlight might have been a much less famous place – Gisela. This very small town (pop. 532) in the mountains right in the center of the state has some great twisty, tight mountain roads around it. Awesome, in fact. So please don’t tell anyone. We don’t want it to become overrun with traffic!

Posted by Editor at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We’ve just completed a pretty important series of on-road drives and track tests in Arizona. We will share some stories from this most recent trip soon.

In the meantime, this latest trip got me thinking of our last trip to the desert. It was one of the first important early drives we had. This shot comes from the little town of Payson, Arizona. These are very early prototype cars, basically “standard” CTS cars we turned into V-Series cars. This route through Arizona gave us a lot of elevation change and temperature change, with some pretty good twisty roads for a fairly comprehensive early test of how the car could turn out. At this early stage of the game (about a year ago) we were roughly at the halfway point, in terms of the calibration of systems throughout the car. My lasting memory of this trip: We started to fully realize that -- holy cow -- this car is powerful. Numbers on paper are one thing. Feeling it on the road is quite another. I had recently come into this program. After this drive, I went from excited to absolutely blown away. This was one of the very first times we ventured outside of our “home” proving grounds with the car, an important milestone.

Posted by Editor at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

By Ed

As, I started to explain the other day, we created this one-off 40-percent scale CTS-V to do what we believe to be the first-ever moving ground plane aero test for a production car.

It’s hard to put this into non-technical terms, but it was a nice advantage to have done this for a super high-performance car. This was us adopting a technique from racing. Aerodynamic testing takes on other dimensions for cars with these types of elite capabilities. When you have the tires really moving and the car “in motion” on a moving ground plane, we can pick up slightly more realistic data for things like how air moves underneath the car at speed, or how air flows through for brake cooling, or even a bit of data for the aero thresholds at very high speeds. Many of these things are of course also tested in “real world” settings on tracks. But having a preview of those conditions early in the process is something we wanted to take advantage of at this very unique facility. Thanks to the guys at ARC, a great facility.

Posted by Editor at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This photo records a little piece of history. CTS-V was the first production car we know of to utilize a process called "moving ground plane aerodynamics testing." Traditional automotive wind tunnels (of which we have several) send large amounts of air at a static car (or prototype of a car, such as a clay or fiberglass model.) A moving ground plane takes it to another level, as it “moves” the floor underneath the car, rolling the tires and replicating the conditions of actual driving. It’s sort of like a wind tunnel combined with a very high-tech treadmill, so to speak. This is a technique previously reserved for testing of advanced race cars.

This was done at a state-of-the-art facility called the Auto Research Center in Indianapolis that is affiliated with racing and engineering leader Adrian Reynard of Reynard Racing (famed for open wheel racing chassis development.) And that is the overwhelming emphasis of this type of testing, Indy cars and other race engineering activities (not surprising that this happens in Indiana!)

Anyway, this required us to create a 40 percent scale CTS-V prototype made mostly of carbon fiber, which is what you see in the photo. This scale model is different from any other we’ve every used, as it had real operating tires and suspension, all built to scale, enabling it to run through the moving ground plane test. More later this week on what we did there, and why we did it.

Posted by Editor at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

By Chris

One of the fun things about finally getting out there in the auto shows is that some of the rumors can either be confirmed, or dispelled. Last year at the Nurburgring some eager photographers snapped a shot of the CTS-V, which happens frequently there. Some of the shots from a long-distance lens “caught” the car with the hood open. I remember we were just outside our garage for maybe 10 minutes, yet, those shots were taken and online quickly.

From these shots tons of web speculation ensued. Some folks surmised that the car would be AWD (they now know it is not.) Others wondered if it would be naturally aspirated (nope), supercharged (bingo!), or even turbocharged (not.) Well, now all of that can be put to rest. What helped continue the speculation a bit was that ‘Ring observers noticed that our car was running awfully fast. And the sound of the car was not really characteristic of a supercharger. Most auto experts would tell you they can hear a supercharger easily. . . not in our case, apparently. And that is by design. Quite a lot of focus was put into the details of the sound, which we should take a look into via subsequent posts. Stay tuned. . .

Posted by Editor at 2:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

We’ve been commenting on some of the inner meaning behind what you have probably seen in photos of the CTS-V. The hood, with its raised center section, is a clear visual cue. Like a lot of things on a car like this, the hood is an aspect where the technical side set the tone for the design. This was a huge exercise in computer-aided design (CAD.) One of the actual CAD images used to design the engine compartment is what you are seeing here.

How do you put 550-hp in a 304-hp box? That was the basic question. What you are seeing in that raised center section is absolutely functional and necessary. Of course, our designers honed the look of it. But every bit of that raised area is needed to house the engine, especially the induction system and Eaton supercharger that sits right on top. We literally shrink-wrapped that engine compartment. The “bulge” is pretty minimal, only as large as it needs to be.

It adds a nice bit of additional visual character to the car. Visually, we didn’t want a huge “bulge” like what you might see on a pony car like a Mustang (that’s not a knock on that very nice car, by the way.) We wanted something powerful, but with a bit of restraint. Also, the higher that bulge is, the less of the road the driver sees. And, you know, seeing the road is kind of important. The goal was to achieve both ends of the spectrum – make it look cool, communicating the serious power underneath, but do it in a way that preserves visibility and looks right for a very luxurious new Cadillac.

Posted by Editor at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Chris

As Ed mentioned in the last post, any Cadillac has a lot of visual and design presence. In the case of CTS-V, a lot of those visual cues have a dual purposes – much of what you see in the photos of the car is as much functional as it is design oriented.

The grille is the most obvious case in point. I’m sure you’ve noticed how the face of the car differs from the CTS we sell today. The driving force for the new V-Series grille is as much functional as it is stylistic. The revised grille openings are 100 percent larger than in the standard car - a gigantic difference. This is a major aspect of the car’s performance. We’re talking about a 550 hp car, as you probably know! That requires tremendous “cooling” capacity. Beyond just engine power, the airflow is also vital for the brake cooling we want to have for our big Brembo brakes, as well as cooling for all sorts of other systems in the car.

Posted by Editor at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

By Ed

So many people have had a chance to see the upcoming CTS-V now either online, in the press, or in person in the auto show circuit. And when a car is parked on an auto show stand, or shown in photos, the first impression is always visual. It’s a completely natural thing, all of us do it. I’m sure if you come to this site, you’ve probably taken a good look at the photos of the CTS-V. But a performance car is about way more than looks.

It struck me that even just by looking at photos you can still see some of the performance and technology we’re working on. So in the coming days a weeks, we’ll do some posts about what you’ve seen in photos. . . and what those visual cues reveal about the performance underneath the surface. Joining me on the blog will be my colleague Chris. He and I will both chime in pretty frequently ... stay tuned.

Posted by Editor at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)