Tonight we got our first in-person peak at the 2014 Cadillac CTS. Yes, it looks as good in person as it does in photos. And yes, now we?re even more excited to jump behind the wheel and unleash the full fury of Cadillac?s new 420-hp, 3.6-liter twin-turbo V-6. But as much as we here at PM like pretty and powerful, we?re just as impressed by how Caddy managed to make the third-gen CTS bigger while also dropping 244 pounds, bringing its total curb weight to 3616 pounds.
Although the first CTS sporting Cadillac's then-new Art & Science styling saved GM's luxury brand from the abyss of irrelevance, the CTS has always had one looming issue: Riding on GM's Sigma platform, it straddled the line between the midsize and compact luxury segments, never truly fitting in either. With the launch of the 2013 ATS sports sedan, Cadillac decided to bump the CTS up by 1.2 inches in the wheelbase and 4.2 inches overall to compete head-on with midsize luxury main players such as the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and BMW 5-Series. Typically this would mean a corresponding rise in overall mass, but along with the ATS came GM?s new RWD/AWD Alpha platform. Even though the CTS rides on an extended version of this Alpha platform, the prominent use of aluminum and magnesium makes it much lighter than the old Sigma platform. This is largely the reason the CTS is trimmer than its smaller, huskier predecessor. (As Cadillac also relishes pointing out, the new CTS will be roughly 200 pounds lighter than BMW's 528i.)
Other weight-saving features in the 2014 CTS include aluminum door structures, which save 55 pounds, and aluminum components in the front multi-link MacPherson strut suspension. For example, roughly 6 pounds were saved by switching control arm setups. According to Cadillac, the five-link independent rear suspension system is mostly steel, but that?s to help counteract the powertrain weight up front. All together, these decisions not only made the car lighter, but they give the CTS close to a 50/50 weight distribution. Did we mention how bad we want to take it for a spin?
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