Driving: The 2020 Cadillac CT5 is a luxury and premium driver’s flagship

Cadillac is working with the big dogs in the European luxury sports sedan segment, and it looks like it keeps pace. The new 2020 CT5 competes with the Audi A6, BMW 5 Series, Jaguar XE, Lincoln MKZ, Genesis G70 and Lexus ES. (Yes, the Japanese, Koreans, and even Ford Motor Co’s Lincoln division are in the game too.) Who said nobody wanted to build a sedan that featured sporty handling, high power, and extreme luxury?

After we recently tried a well-equipped version of the smaller and more affordable CT4, we had the honor to spend a week with the CT5-V, the sporty version of the mid-size luxury sedan. The sticker is $ 56,305 and is outfitted with a 360hp V-6 that’s nearly silent on the highway but makes itself audible with authority on urban and country roads, especially in sporty driving mode. The CT5 base engine, starting price $ 36,895, is powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-wheel drive that produces 237 hp.

The passenger compartment and trunk is more spacious than those on the CT4, so the CT5 is more like a traditional Cadillac sedan than its little brother. However, for a true Cadillac mimic, the CT6 full-size is best. Unfortunately, it was discontinued earlier this year. The Hamtramck plant that was used to produce electric cars is being converted.

The CT5 is luxurious and sporty, but with some of the same flaws we noticed on the CT4 a few months ago. The front bucket seats are as wide as possible, but the rear seat is fairly narrow, and headroom is insufficient for passengers taller than 5–11. The boot volume is 11.9 cubic feet – more than the CT4, but much less than the number of competitors, including BMW, Lexus and Audi.

The dashboard controls are logically placed, but the stickers really need to be bigger. Young men with sharp eyes aren’t the first to buy Cadillacs, and older drivers might have a hard time making codes. Buick, the brand that has catered to older drivers over the years, delights that demographic with large, easy-to-understand labels on its controls.

Otherwise, we found the CT5 easy to live with. The road feel is excellent, but the car drives very smoothly and comfortably.

Since 2018, Cadillac has been offering on some models a feature called Super Cruise, a self-driving mode that outperforms Tesla’s autopilot system, according to Consumer Reports. We’ve been looking to try the Super Cruise – not just to see how it works, but to see how we respond to this technology in the real world – but it didn’t become available on the CT4 and CT5 until 2021 model year. Super Cruise is not cheap. In high-end cars equipped with driver assistance and technology package as standard equipment, the Super Cruise will add $ 2,500 to the price. Buyers of the lower-tier models will have to pay extra for the tech package plus the Super Cruise, for a total of $ 6,150.