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"   Nothing like getting a ride in a fast car to make you feel like a teenager again. It&amp;#039;s not that GM didn&amp;#039;t trust us to drive its new Cadillac CTS-V, it&amp;#039;s just not completely finished yet. Thus my rides in three early mule cars.   The car&amp;#039;s performance is finalized. Power is rated at a staggering SAE-certified 556 bhp at 6100 rpm and 551 lb.-ft. of torque at 3800 rpm. GM also completed 24-hour endurance testing and did a lap at the N\u00FCrburgring of just under 8 minutes at 7:59.32, believed to be a record for a V-8 sedan running on street tires. It was a silver CTS-V equipped with the new 6-speed automatic. It&amp;#039;s the one with the track sticker on its rear. The Ring car was also fitted with a roll hoop, Sparco race seats, 5-point belts, a fire-suppression system, an onboard measurement system and a differential cooler \u2014 this last piece will be a dealer-installed option. Other than that, it was stock. The only thing you can&amp;#039;t get at the dealership is the hot lap from John Heinricy, GM&amp;#039;s director of vehicle integration, who did the driving.   From the very supportive, but optional Recaro passenger seat, I could tell immediately that the engineers had killed the previous CTS-V&amp;#039;s dreaded rear wheel hop. Get the launch right and the V goes like it&amp;#039;s built for drag racing. Get it wrong and it smokes the rear tires. What&amp;#039;s great about it, though, is that nothing fazes it: no clunks, jerks, pops or wheezes like in the old car. The monstrous power just pushes the car down the road \u2014 quickly. Never once did I see the manual&amp;#039;s shift lever twitch. The entire car felt steady and planted even when digging a hole in the back straightaway of GM&amp;#039;s Milford proving ground in Michigan.   From the driver&amp;#039;s seat things are a little different, as the gauges have an additional feature referred to as &amp;quot;tracers.&amp;quot; These are little red LED lights that follow the needles as they sweep. On the tachometer near redline they flash progressively to indicate a needed shift. For each gear, the timing of the lights is set so that the driver will always have the same amount of time to react. I found this very intriguing, even looking over the driver&amp;#039;s shoulder.   The Magnetic Ride Control and different-diameter halfshafts help absorb oscillation energy at the launch. The MRC system also softens the shocks for full compression and stiffens them on rebound. It seems to work very well. Sub 4-second 0-60 runs are expected and I believe it. On a ride and handling loop, the V showed off its ability to absorb bumps and keep itself steady. Even when switching the MRC system between Sport and Normal, the car felt well-damped and significantly more purposeful than its predecessor.   Noticbly absent was launch control. It&amp;#039;s development and release have been delayed, so it won&amp;#039;t be on the first generation cars. I&amp;#039;ve been promised by Sam Winegarden, executive director, engine engineering that the ZR1 will however come equipped with such a system from the very first unit.   Can&amp;#039;t wait to push the pedal on my own. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/first-drives/reviews/a14113/first-ride-2009-cadillac-cts-v/>