BMW 5 Series Touring, BMW M3 Touring, Audi S2, Audi RS6 Avant, Volvo V90, Mercedes-AMG E63 T-model. Most of the best wagons ever made come from Germany, and a few more are Swedish. Cadillac didn’t like that, and os it went completely crazy a few decades back, making the Corvette of family cars, also known as the CTS-V Wagon.
Now, the model hasn’t been in production for many years. However, just like the Dodge Magnum, it’s almost impossible to forget this epic mix of German practicality and American V8 technology. It’s especially important now when Audi finally sells the RS6 Avant to Americans. That new A6 e-tron wagon also looks pretty good.
I’ll stop short of saying Cadillac will offer a wagon version of the CT5; that’s simply not true. Wagons only make up about 2% of the total car market in America, and the number is only that high because the Subaru Outback counts, even though it’s a crossover.
But it’s a real shame when you consider how popular Detroit’s wagons used to be, how practical and cool. And to make visualizing a 2022 Cadillac wagon easier, we’ve got the perfect realistic rendering, created by Sugar Design from the bones of the latest CT5 sports sedan.
He gives the car wider hips at the back. The large windows and simple, vertical taillights are a clear tribute to the old CTS-V wagon, even though the rendering isn’t meant to be a performance model.
The legendary Corvette-powered Cadillac wagon
The CTS-V was no doubt the best grocery-getter ever made, or at least the most exciting. As Cadillac historians will attest, the CTS arrived when GM saw its sedan sales slipping. It was priced like a compact vehicle but competed well with the BMW 5 Series. And to really make that stand out, they took the V8 out of the Corvette Z06, a 5.7-liter 400 horsepower monster. It also got a Tremec T-56, the 6-speed manual that makes all the restomod cool.
Things got crazier and crazier with time: better wheels, tires, engines, and brakes. By 2017, the CTS-V was making 640 hp from its supercharged 6.2-liter. And while the CTS isn’t available, we have a successor, the CT5.
Its spiciest version is called the 2022 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing, which is 668 horsepower and 659 lb-ft of torque from a 6.2L Supercharged V8. This super-cool sports sedan is once again available with a manual, featuring flat-foot shifting. That’s not bad when you consider it starts from $85,000.
Of course, it’s not just about power. After the war, a generation of Americans grew up in station wagons, and the Cadillac Fleetwood was one of the coolest. However, with bench seats at the back and a side-opening trunk, this luxury hauler had little in common with the speed machines we’re now demanding.
