Cadillac CTS-V Destroys Them All At N-Ring With A 7:59!

They are Sparcos as you can make out the white Sparco lettering.

Compare the previous picture to this.
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I opened the photo with PS, enhanced it, and could make out no lettering whatsoever.
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The Sparco lettering is as clear as day...oh wait, nevermind.

 

N-ring proves nothing!.

 

Its amazing what some folks bias will enable them to 'see' in a picture...

 

I don't see the Sparco lettering either. The 2009 CTS-V will be available with two different seating choices (if my dealer knows what the heck he is talking about). The standard CTS seat trimmed with Alcanterra and also the sport seat option (W2E): Recaro Heated/Ventilated Performance Seats. He didn't have any photos or pricing when I talked to him last Tuesday.

Heck of a lap time, should be a hoot to drive.

 

Enhanced it? Looks like you just cropped it, and blew it up. Even I can't see anything.

Care to see the bigger picture?
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/05/ctsv_greenhell1280.jpg

Can you see it now, or are you just going blind?
Looking at Sparco's site, they are Sparco seats, Sparco Evo 3 models to be exact.
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Changing seats and adding a rollcage was fror safety, it isn't like they changed suspension settings or fudged horsepower figures like someone else we know....

 

Your bit*chng about a seat change? Are you kidding me? The weight loss is offset by the rollcage anyway.

 

Thats what I was thinking. That cage probrably weighs 40-50 lbs which more then enough offsets the seat weight.

 

The seats that come with the Cadillac will easily way around 100lbs a piece. The Sparco Evo 3s weigh 15-20lbs. The car loses 60lbs. right there. And as F50 said, the bar probably added only 50lbs. at most. Do the math there. A loss of 10Lbs. Even if it didn't lose weight, the car's roll cage has immediately contributed to the car's performance. And while they call it a safety reason, I also doubt it was a "coincidence" that these pieces of "safety" equipment are also equipment used to help a car perform better.

As for changing the suspension and such, you actually never know. If GM will add parts you won't get with the CTS-V, who knows what else they can change. Nissan's already debated by folks about whether or not they change their Nurburgring cars. Who's to say GM can't be part of a similar debate?
The whole point is that this CTS-V is not stock, and it's just silly to say it dominated all the other sedans. Of course it did. It's a modified car that "dominated" stock competitors.

 

A majority of the weight of the seats ends up being the brackets on the new V. The new V doesn't have Mercedes seats that weigh 100 lbs a piece. That kind of speculation is purely silly.

The cage adds rigidity, certainly.

GM have a tendancy to not dumb down suspension.... only in-cabin noise, and misc bits of customer complaints... usually when also imporoving the suspension, and/or engine from year to year... that is the recent history of GM performance cars.... 2001 c5 Z is more hardcore in terms of how spartan it is, however, the 2004 suspension is the best, and 2002 had less noise in the transmission, and 20 more hp.... by 2004, the c5 Z06 was running 7:56 at the ring, when the 1998ish C5 was running 8:40.

Nissan's recent history is one full of lies

 

Do you read or are you just thick? ALL the factory cars that run at the ring have cages fitted for the most part. A huge company can't afford a driver loss. And the stock seats don't weigh 100 pounds, no seat, even full power weighs that much. So you are complaining about less then 40 pounds most likey. That is a full tank of fuel or a big driver. You are pulling at strings and getting to the end....

 

...... I don't understand how someone could be defending the obviously non-stock Caddy while dissing the GT-R laptime. Changed suspension setting and fudged horsepower figure? I don't suppose all the magazine reviews on GT-R's (Nissan loaners and customer cars) are all non-stock IMO. Do you see rollcage & Sparco on the GT-R? I didn't think so.

 

This fellow fiercely defends the CTS-V which has had obvious modifications done to it. At the same time he tries oh-so very hard to poke holes in the Nissan GTR's armor by dreaming up reasons to doubt it. He gets upset because the factory underrates the horsepower. He gets upset because "somebody" said that maybe perhaps the car could quite possibly have had "tweaks" to the suspension. He tries to say the tires that the car comes with are too soft a compound. He tries to say how a Nissan driver is biased and only my grandmother should take it around the track for the official time. But oh no, the performance gods at Cadillac can do no wrong.

I don't quite understand his reasons. . . but it's pretty entertaining, don't you think?

 

Very impressive even if the CTS had some tuning that can be "ordered" by the customer from the factory... at some later date... for his racing team.

 

Impressive indeed although apparently Frank Stippler in an Audi RS4 did a 7:58

 

Listen to your hypocricy. You've bashed the GT-R, and called it a lie ever since its lap time came in, and now when General Motors adds different racing material to the CTS-V, you find it perfectly fine. But that's not my point. My point is that GM set a 7:59 with a modified, non-stock Cadillac. That time, thus, should never be compared to the other Nurburgring times we have because most of those times are set by customer cars by a magazine. You'd be comparing a modified car to a stock one.

And power seats can weigh around 100lbs. in a good size, luxury saloon. The CTS- probably won't have that much weight in them, but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't far off.

 

does it really matter if it is 7:59 or 8:05 or 8:15? Fact is that the new CTS-V is going to be VERY powerful and VERY quick. The power and performance of the new sedan will put it among some pretty serious competition for a fraction of the price.

 

Apparently GM thinks it matters.

 

+1

I waited to see if this thread was bating... but apparently blatent hiprocracy is ok.

More on topic, I am a big fan of the CTS-V and think is a GREAT car. Would love to pic up an 05 or 06 for my next daily driver.

 

I think adding roll cage is okay for safety reasons, but adding a racing seat is no no. I have a Sparco Evo seat and that thing is like 5lb. Compared to leather luxury seat that weights around 80lb.

 

not including the brackets, the seat is 15 lbs. the brakets are iron themselves, are are another 5 lbs all together.

the seats in the V are not 80 lbs

I don't even know why this is an argument.

oh, and the GTR was recently tested

1/4 in 11.6 @ 111.6 mph.... that is

0-111.6 mph in 11.6 seconds, while the turbo is going 125 mph by the same amount of time... so where, exactly is the GTR faster?

 

A trap speed compared to a trap time on the 1/4 mile is a tricky science. Traditionally, a car with more power will set a higher SPEED, while a quicker car that launches better can produce a lower time while also setting a lower speed.

Edit: re-read your post... I guess you guys will have to argue what "faster" is defined by. I would agree that in the straight line over a longer distance, the 911 is faster, but the GTR is quicker, and will pull away from the 911 first.

 

if the 911 turbo is faster frmo 60-130+++ , then where exactly on a track is the GTR "really" faster... would the GTR have to have mid corner speed of 100 mph, with the 911 Turbo @ 90 mph, where the GTR's top speed before the next turn is 120, and the 911 is 130... is that what the deal is?