Cadillac CTS-V news - V for Value - 2009

Good news: the Cadillac CTS-V is going on sale in the UK next month. Bad news: no one in the UK has any money left to buy one.

Which is a pity, because it’s not really all that expensive. By super-saloon standards, at least. It’ll cost from £56,495 when it hits the road in February, which is pretty reasonable for a car packing a 6.2-litre supercharged V8 putting out 556bhp and 550lb ft of torque.

To put that in context, the BMW M5’s V10 develops 500bhp and 384lb ft of torque – and as you’d expect, the CTS-V has the edge in terms of pace, too. It’ll hit 60mph in just under four seconds, whereas the M5 takes a tardy 4.7 seconds to reach the same speed.

Oh, and it’ll cost you over £10,000 more. At least, it would have done before all the performance cars started losing their value quicker than a Zimbabwean ISA account.

Read Paul Horrell’s CTS-V drive.

So what’s the catch with the CTS-V? For one, it’s only available in left-hand drive. And, though it’s yards ahead of most American fare, the interior quality isn’t quite up to German standards.

Still, all the power should be enough to tempt a fair few. At least, it would be if we weren’t all desperately hunting woodland mammals with our bare hands to find something to eat…