Every morning on my way to work there's a happy place where I can let it all hang out in the Cadillac CTS Vsport. You might have a favorite expanse of asphalt, hairpin onramp, or twisty section on your daily route where you can really open your car up and let it fly. Mine starts with a wide sweeper on entry. Then it's hard on the Vsport's go-pedal, V-6 wailing as I explode down the long, dogleg left ramp that pours me onto the freeway at speed.
Barreling out of the short chute, it's duck, dodge, brake, accelerate, and shoot the gap. Some days I can just power past everyone; on others I have to wait a beat or two until a sliver of daylight emerges and I can pour more gas on the Cadillac's twin-turbo fire. Then I settle into the left lane, throttle back, and let the traffic wash over me. Such is the life in L.A. with the Vsport. Short bursts of unbridled joy followed by long stretches of stop-and-go pain.
One thing that wasn't painful at all was my trip to Symes Cadillac in Pasadena for the Vsport's first service, at 7000 miles. I was in and out in less than an hour, and the total was $0.00 thanks to Cadillac's free initial maintenance program.
I've been able to stretch the CTS out during recent blasts to Las Vegas and Phoenix, and what really stands out after a few hours sawing on the Vsport's wonderfully meaty, right-sized helm is how it deftly straddles the line between hardcore sport and luxury sedan. I've spent a few days in Cadillac V Series cars over the years and they are intense and massively entertaining machines. While there is slightly less of an edge to the Vsport -- namely the lack of the Janet Jackson-nasty, 556-hp supercharged V-8 under the hood and a row-your-own option -- it is just about as ferocious and furious as its V-Series patriarchs in most every performance metric.
