Cadillac Challenge To European Luxury Is Authentically American

For a decade now, Cadillac has been challenging luxury performance leaders BMW, Mercedes and Audi for the hearts, minds and wallets of Americans, and recently for an even broader international clientele.

Skepticism about whether Cadillac is up to the task is now definitively swept aside as the third generation of the high performance Cadillac CTS-V blasts all benchmarks with eye-popping styling, super lux interiors, top shelf technology, and track-ready engineering and performance.

Europhiles may blanche at the intense exterior skin and lighting design of the $91,000 CTS-V. They will certainly tremble at the fearsome 6.2 liter 640 horsepower, rear wheel drive V8 with 0 – 60 times of 3.7 seconds.

Besting the Mercedes-Benz 5.5L biturbo V-8 and the BMW M-series 4.4L TwinPower V-8 in the performance stats is a big deal for Cadillac.

More significantly, Cadillac is clearly committed to creating an American car that revels in an authentic muscle car tradition, not just imitation of its Euro competitors.

And the message is finding its mark. A surge in US, China, Middle East and Mexico gave Cadillac a global sales boost of 24.5% in December, and a 7.5% increase for 2015.