Sloppy Seconds Drive! Cadillac CTS Wagon Part 2

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It doesn’t matter if I’m drinking or not, I’ve always been fond of the wagon. So much like a car but with room for extra stuff. Not as much stuff as say our CX-7 built on the Mazda3 platform, but visibly much bigger than its sister sedan. Spec check shows an extra 11.4 cu. ft. for 25 total over the sedan’s 13.6.

Interior materials were what I would expect from a vehicle competing in the $40K plus range. Good amount of leather with a lot of white stitching but leave it up to GM to sneak some crappy, semi-gloss looking plastic on the dash end caps and around the seat controls down low. The center stack gave me pause when I first looked at it. A bit busy but nowadays it’s typical. Clean gauge cluster with round dials made up for it.

On the railroad track, pothole filled roads which are synonymous with Michigan, the suspension set up showed no signs of skiddish overtones. It was taught yet plush. Power through the Hydra-Matic six speed was smooth with upshifts taking little time and of little notice. However, we look forward to the Sport Wagon with an available six-speed manual to really test power to the pavement. Our early pre-production model had roof fit problems which on heavy flex in and out of our steep driveway, made some audible tones. This has all been corrected for production.

Cadillac has done something that any car loving guy believes he could do to a washed up brand – reinvent itself. It’s gone from class-leading-elegance to stodgy-old-guy-ride to pimp-mobile to grandma’s-grocery-getter to performance-leader. Well done.

CTS Sport Wagon’s 3.6L V-6, direct injection translates to 304 HP SAE @ 6,400 rpm; 273 ft lb, 369 Nm @ 5,200 rpm
Transmission: Aisin six-speed manual or Hydra-Matic 6L50 six-speed automatic.
Suspension: four-wheel independent: MacPherson strut front; multilink rear, progressive rate coil springs, monotube shock absorbers
Steering: variable-assist rack-and-pinion
Brakes: four-wheel disc; aluminum or iron dual-piston front calipers; aluminum or iron
single-piston rear calipers

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