Video: 2016 Cadillac ATS-V Review

Now just because the ATS-V is a CTSV's younger brother, doesn't mean the ATS-V is any less dedicated of a performance package. In fact, it is a thorough reworking of the ATS and its goal is to offer track day fun and every day luxurious drivability. All ATS-Vs use a carbon fiber hood, and underneath that carbon fiber hood (bonnet opening click) is a 464 horsepower twin turbocharged V6. Now the achilles heel of any turbocharged engine can be it's turbo lag, and a lot of work went into the ATS-V to maximize boost response with the turbocharger placement, turbocharger construction, as well as the intake track for the intercooler system, and it works well. Boost ramps up real quick, power comes on strong, (car revving) it's a great little engine. Now, it's 92 horsepower down from the previous generation CTS-V. It's also 500 pounds lighter. Part of what makes the ATS-V such a blast to drive is it's exhaust note, but it's not entirely attributable to the exhaust. While there are mechanical part that bypasses the muffler, it's also an active system inside the car that pipes in certain engine frequencies. The combined effect is great. There's this exotic wail when you're getting on it, and it doesn't get old in the automatic transmission or the manual transmission. (car engine revving) The ATS-V may not have an excess amount of power, but that contributes to the car's overall feeling of being extremely well balanced. The Cadillac guys have referred to the CTS-V, the new one, as the "Sledgehammer", whereas this is the "Scalpel", and I kind of get what they're saying. It's an extremely precise, very well balanced car, and it's perfectly capable as a track toy. Cadillac benchmarked the BMW M3 and M4 for a lot of it's driving characteristics and lap times. (car engine revving) Now if there's one area of which the ATS-V were a little closer to the M3 and M4 on, is its steering feel. I wish there was just a little bit more feedback from the front tires through the steering wheel, but, if you're not that far off on that area from a BMW, M3 and M4, you're doing a pretty good job. Our introduction to the ATS-V came on Austin's circuit of the Americas Formula one track. It's not a track to be taken lightly, and the ATS-V didn't feel out of place at all on this extremely technical, extremely fast track. Through the fast S's, (car driving) the car remains extremely well balanced, even in quick transitions. When it came time to slow down from 140 miles an hour on the circuits long straightaway, the brakes were absolutely up to the task. Upfront you have CTS-V brakes from the previous generation, and out back you have Corvette Z51 breaks. The stopping power is just incredible, and it didn't wear down after a half day of constant lapping. The key to exploiting the ATS-Vs full capabilities, lie in its various driving modes. You have the touring mode, sport, track and snow. Track mode is the most aggressive. And with in track mode, there's also five levels of performance traction management system. Now that's going to reign in various stability and traction control settings. So, you can tone down the suspension, steering and throttle settings and make the car perfectly livable in normal situations. It's still apparent though, that this car has been worked over pretty heavily. There's all sorts of chassis bracing that's been added as well as over a dozen new bushings that are stiffer or replaced with ball joints. (car engine revving) There's more road noise, but it's not unlivable, it's still perfectly manageable, considering the car's capabilities. I have to give credit to Cadillac for offering a six speed manual transmission in the ATS-V. A few of its competitors don't and it's a big advantage for those looking to row your own gears. You honestly can't go wrong with either transmission option because the automatic is an eight speed automatic transmission, and it's borrowed from the Corvette. There are changes made for use in the ATS-V, but it has the same characteristics that we love in the Corvette. And that's, it keeps the revs high between shifts, is overall just a very smooth, very smart transmission, especially in track mode, where it intuitively changes gears and it needs no intervention. (car engine revving) I just transferred out of paddle manual mode and went in full automatic and had just as much confidence of what the transmission was doing on the track, then trying to do it myself with the paddle shifters. I'm leaning towards the manual transmission on the ATS-V because of three very unique, very fun features. Launch control is just a blast. If you have some long stretches of road ahead of you, you gotta try it out. In track mode, and in the various PTM modes, that also affect wheel spin, you can push in the clutch, jam on the accelerator, (wheels spinning) dump the clutch in first gear, and it'll control wheel spin to give you a nice hard launch. Then there's active rev match. With that feature activated, when you downshift, it'll automatically blip the throttle to match that gear to engine speed. Then there's no-lift shift. No-lift shift is a little tricky to master, but once you do, it is extremely rewarding. With no-lift shift, when you go change gears, you keep your foot to the floor, you'll quickly press the clutch pedal and change the gears and now the trick is to do it fast. If you do it slow, it's gonna bounce off the rev limiter, but if you do it fast, it just meshes so perfectly and it's an absolute blast. If it sounded like the ATS-V is built with a lot of GM parts bin product, you're partly right, but everything's been fine tuned for the Cadillac version and that includes another feature that we've seen before but makes an appearance in the ATS-V, and that is the Performance Data Recorder. Now, this is a camera and telemetry system that's integrated into the car and with an SD card, you can record in car video of when you're on the track or on a nice scenic coastal cruise (engine revving) and you can overlay various gauges like speedometer, tachometer, steering angle and multiple inputs. Plus, you can pull that data and get track times acceleration numbers, a very cool feature. And in the Cadillac, it's been tweaked slightly with better audio and slightly revised color. You can watch playback, of your lap, on the car screen with the audio playing through the system and it sounds very good, (engine revving) and it looks much better than its 720 P resolution should suggest, though GM is working on finding a upgraded camera for future systems. A few gripes aside at $60,000.00 for the sedan and around $63,000.00 for the coupe, there's no question that the ATS-V is a world-class handling machine. And it does that with the everyday drivability that we expect from a Cadillac performance vehicle. (car trunk closing)